Transfer of Administrative HR Services to Global Service Center in Poland

Liiketoimintaa tukevien palvelujen etätuotanto edustaa uutta kansainvälistymisen muotoa. Kehittyvien markkinoiden nousu yhdistettynä yritysten arvoketjutoimintojen kansainvälistymiseen on luonut yrityksille kasvavan paineen etsiä parasta sijaintia toiminnoilleen. Monikansalliset yritykset ovat yhä useammin korvanneet paikallisia henkilöstöpalvelujaan siirtymällä globaaliin malliin jaettujen palvelujen tuotannossa. Tämä diplomityö on toteutettu tukeakseen UPM:n henkilöstöhallintoa globaalin palvelukeskuksen perustamisessa Puolaan. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on laajentaa käsitystä henkilöstöpalvelujen tarjontamallin uudistamiseen johtaneista tekijöistä ja motiiveista. Empiirisen tutkimuksen tärkein tavoite on tukea rekrytoinnin hallinnollisten töiden siirtoa globaaliin palvelukeskukseen palvelun laadun säilyessä vähintään aikaisemmalla tasolla. Tutkimuksen tulokset painottavat strategista näkökulmaa muutokseen. Strategiset syyt UPM:n henkilöstöhallinnon globaalin palvelukeskuksen perustamiselle sisältävät ylikapasiteetin ja päällekkäisten toimintojen vähentämisen eri maissa. Muutos lisää palvelun joustavuutta sekä edesauttaa toiminnan läpinäkyvyyttä, ennustettavuutta ja kustannusten valvontaa. Onnistuneesti toteutetut jaetut palvelut voivat toimia hyvänä lähtökohtana tehokkaiden henkilöstöpalvelujen tuottamiselle.

Value co-creation through virtual community participation

Consumers create a great deal of content in the Internet. As they do not get a monetary compensation for doing so, it seems apparent that other types of reward are derived from giving up one's time and other resources. The purpose of this study is to describe value creation and user participation in a virtual community. It can be broken down into three research questions. 1. What is the value creation logic of a virtual community? 2. What value is perceived by virtual community users? 3. What is the association between value perceived by virtual community users and their participation in a community? The study employs the discussion on value co-creation as well as perspectives on the notion of value for consumers to create a theoretical framework for value creation. To understand value creation in the context of virtual communities and to create a theoretical framework for user participation, existing literature and research on virtual communities is discussed. The empirical part of the study employs quantitative methodology to analyze data collected by sending a survey questionnaire to the users of a Finnish wellbeing-based virtual community. The results indicate that virtual community users perceive self-development, enjoyment, reputation-building and community commitment value when using the service and that value perceptions are associated with community participation. Moreover, it was found that different types of value are associated with different forms of participation. Based on the findings, it is suggested that the four types of value make up a considerable share of value for virtual community users. Moreover, as the results indicate that different value types are associated with different forms of participation, it suggested that virtual community organizers consider what forms of participation they want to promote and design their virtual communities to support creation of the different types of value accordingly.

Kunnossapitopalveluiden arvopohjaisen elinkaarimallin kehittäminen

Tutkimuksen päätavoitteena on luoda yleispätevä elinkaarimalli, jota voidaan hyö-dyntää laitetason kunnossapitoon liittyvissä päätöksentekotilanteissa eri teollisuu-denaloilla. Elinkaarimalliin yhdistettiin arvoajattelu, jonka pohjalta mallin käyttäjät voivat valita ja painottaa omien näkemyksiensä mukaan arvoa luovat elementit sekä nähdä muille verkostojäsenille arvoa lisäävät tekijät. Aiemmissa elinkaarimalleissa on keskitytty pääasiassa yhteen tarkastelunäkökulmaan, joten verkostotason työkalulle on selkeä tarve. Myöskään arvoajattelua ei ole aiemmin yhdistetty elinkaarilaskentaa soveltaviin malleihin. Työn osalta käytettiin konstruktiivista tutkimusotetta. Elinkaarimallia kehitettiin ja testattiin kaivosteollisuuden yritysverkostoon kuuluvien kahden case-tapauksen avulla. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen osa pohjautui työn oleellisempiin osa-alueisiin, kuten kunnossapitoon, arvoelementteihin ja elinkaarilaskentaan. Työn empiirisessä osiossa hyödynnettiin verkostoon kuuluvien yritysedustajien haastatteluita sekä yritysten tietojärjestelmästä saatuja tietoja. Arvoelementtien muodostuksessa käy-tettiin hyväksi myös muiden teollisuusyritysten ajatuksia ja näkökulmia. Työn merkittävin tulos on ensimmäisen version kehittäminen arvopohjaisesta elinkaarimallista. Elinkaarimalli antaa tuloksina jokaisen verkostojäsenen osalta laitteen kunnossapidon kustannukset ja tuotot vuositasolla sekä kumulatiivisesti koko elinkaaren ajalta niin reaali- kuin nykyarvonakin. Mallin tuloksena saadaan myös yhteistyön myötä kasvaneen lisäarvon suuruus ja jakautuminen verkoston toimijoiden välillä heidän valitsemiensa arvoelementtien mukaisesti. Näin ollen mallia voidaan käyttää tulevaisuuden ennustamisen lisäksi menneiden kustannusten ja tuottojen seurantamallina. Kokonaisuudessaan arvopohjaisen elinkaarimallin tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää laitetason kunnossapitoon liittyvissä sopimusneuvotte-luissa niin arvoa luovien elementtien kuin kustannus- ja tuottotekijöidenkin osalta. Kokonaisuudessaan arvoajattelun yhdistäminen ja hyödyntäminen elinkaarilas-kennassa on vielä alkuvaiheessa, joten kyseinen osa-alue onkin varsin järkevä jat-kotutkimuskohde. Avoimen ja tiiviin yritysyhteistyön kautta saadaan arvopohjai-sesta elinkaarimallista jatkokehitettyä erittäin hyödyllinen työkalu yritysverkosto-jen käytettäväksi. Kiristyvässä kilpailussa verkoston kokonaisarvon kasvu ja ja-kautuminen ovat tulevaisuudessa erittäin keskeisiä aihealueita, joten tämäntyylisten verkostotyökalujen hyödyntäminen nostanee ehdottomasti suosiotaan.

Exploring Customer-Oriented Service Offerings in Public Health: Developing Integrated Health Care Services for Rural Areas

Väestön ikääntyminen pakottaa yhteiskunnan ja julkisen terveydenhuollon muutoksiin. Jotta ikääntyvien ihmisten kotona asuminen voidaan mahdollistaa, palvelujärjestelmän pitää mukautua muuttuvaan tilanteeseen. Tämän diplomityön tarkoituksena on tunnistaa asiakaslähtöisiä lähellä asiakasta tarjottavia palvelukokonaisuuksia. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys muodostuu asiakasarvon luomisesta ja palvelutarjoamista. Tarkasteluryhmänä on Etelä-Karjalan alueen 60–90-vuotiaat ja käytetty aineisto on kerätty vastaajilta postitse lähetetyllä kyselyllä. Tutkimus on eksploratiivinen ja tulosten tulkinnassa on hyödynnetty määrällisen tutkimuksen ja verkostoanalyysin menetelmiä. Työn keskeisimmät tulokset ovat tunnistetut asiakassegmentit ja heidän tarpeidensa pohjalta muodostetut palvelupaketit. Tulokset indikoivat asiakkaiden tarpeita ja tuloksia on analysoitu myös tuottajan näkökulmasta. Empiiristen tulosten lisäksi teoriaviitekehystä on kehitetty eteenpäin, jotta palvelukeskeiset teoriat voidaan ymmärtää yritysten näkökulman lisäksi asiakkaan näkökulmasta.

Drivers and barriers of mobile travel and tourism service adoption : a study of individual perceptions and business model development in a travel and tourism context

The Travel and Tourism field is undergoing changes due to the rapid development of information technology and digital services. Online travel has profoundly changed the way travel and tourism organizations interact with their customers. Mobile technology such as mobile services for pocket devices (e.g. mobile phones) has the potential to take this development even further. Nevertheless, many issues have been highlighted since the early days of mobile services development (e.g. the lack of relevance, ease of use of many services). However, the wide adoption of smartphones and the mobile Internet in many countries as well as the formation of so-called ecosystems between vendors of mobile technology indicate that many of these issues have been overcome. Also when looking at the numbers of downloaded applications related to travel in application stores like Google Play, it seems obvious that mobile travel and tourism services are adopted and used by many individuals. However, as business is expected to start booming in the mobile era, many issues have a tendency to be overlooked. Travelers are generally on the go and thus services that work effectively in mobile settings (e.g. during a trip) are essential. Hence, the individuals’ perceived drivers and barriers to use mobile travel and tourism services in on-site or during trip settings seem particularly valuable to understand; thus this is one primary aim of the thesis. We are, however, also interested in understanding different types of mobile travel service users. Individuals may indeed be very different in their propensity to adopt and use technology based innovations (services). Research is also switching more from investigating issues of mobile service development to understanding individuals’ usage patterns of mobile services. But designing new mobile services may be a complex matter from a service provider perspective. Hence, our secondary aim is to provide insights into drivers and barriers of mobile travel and tourism service development from a holistic business model perspective. To accomplish the research objectives seven different studies have been conducted over a time period from 2002 – 2013. The studies are founded on and contribute to theories within diffusion of innovations, technology acceptance, value creation, user experience and business model development. Several different research methods are utilized: surveys, field and laboratory experiments and action research. The findings suggest that a successful mobile travel and tourism service is a service which supports one or several mobile motives (needs) of individuals such as spontaneous needs, time-critical arrangements, efficiency ambitions, mobility related needs (location features) and entertainment needs. The service could be customized to support travelers’ style of traveling (e.g. organized travel or independent travel) and should be easy to use, especially easy to take into use (access, install and learn) during a trip, without causing security concerns and/or financial risks for the user. In fact, the findings suggest that the most prominent barrier to the use of mobile travel and tourism services during a trip is an individual’s perceived financial cost (entry costs and usage costs). It should, however, be noted that regulations are put in place in the EU regarding data roaming prices between European countries and national telecom operators are starting to see ‘international data subscriptions’ as a sales advantage (e.g. Finnish Sonera provides a data subscription in the Baltic and Nordic region at the same price as in Finland), which will enhance the adoption of mobile travel and tourism services also in international contexts. In order to speed up the adoption rate travel service providers could consider e.g. more local initiatives of free Wi-Fi networks, development of services that can be used, at least to some extent, in an offline mode (do not require costly network access during a trip) and cooperation with telecom operators (e.g. lower usage costs for travelers who use specific mobile services or travel with specific vendors). Furthermore, based on a developed framework for user experience of mobile trip arrangements, the results show that a well-designed mobile site and/or native application, which preferably supports integration with other mobile services, is a must for true mobile presence. In fact, travel service providers who want to build a relationship with their customers need to consider a downloadable native application, but in order to be found through the mobile channel and make contact with potential new customers, a mobile website should be available. Moreover, we have made a first attempt with cluster analysis to identify user categories of mobile services in a travel and tourism context. The following four categories were identified: info-seekers, checkers, bookers and all-rounders. For example “all-rounders”, represented primarily by individuals who use their pocket device for almost any of the investigated mobile travel services, constituted primarily of 23 to 50 year old males with high travel frequency and great online experience. The results also indicate that travel service providers will increasingly become multi-channel providers. To manage multiple online channels, closely integrated and hybrid online platforms for different devices, supporting all steps in a traveler process should be considered. It could be useful for travel service providers to focus more on developing browser-based mobile services (HTML5-solutions) than native applications that work only with specific operating systems and for specific devices. Based on an action research study and utilizing a holistic business model framework called STOF we found that HTML5 as an emerging platform, at least for now, has some limitations regarding the development of the user experience and monetizing the application. In fact, a native application store (e.g. Google Play) may be a key mediator in the adoption of mobile travel and tourism services both from a traveler and a service provider perspective. Moreover, it must be remembered that many device and mobile operating system developers want service providers to specifically create services for their platforms and see native applications as a strategic advantage to sell more devices of a certain kind. The mobile telecom industry has moved into a battle of ecosystems where device makers, developers of operating systems and service developers are to some extent forced to choose their development platforms.

Profiling the Value of Industrial Maintenance Services

Industrial maintenance can be executed internally, acquired from the original equipment manufacturer or outsourced to a service provider, and this concludes in many different kind of business relationships. To maximize the total value in a maintenance business relationship it is important to know what the partner values. The value of maintenance services can be considered to consist of value elements and the perceived total value for the customer and the service provider is the sum of these value elements. The specific objectives of this thesis are to identify the most important value elements for the maintenance service customer and provider and also to recognize where the value elements differ. The study was executed as a statistical analysis using the survey method. The data has been collected by an online survey sent to 345 maintenance service professionals in Finland. In the survey, four different types of value elements were considered: the customer’s high critical and low critical items and the service provider’s core and support service. The most valued elements by the respondents were reliability, safety at work, environmental safety, and operator knowledge. The least valued elements were asset management factors and access to markets. Statistically significant differences in value elements between service types were also found. As a managerial implication a value gap profile is presented. This Master’s Thesis is part of the MaiSeMa (Industrial Maintenance Services in a Renewing Business Network: Identify, Model and Manage Value) research project where network decision models are created to identify, model and manage the value of maintenance services.

Service Blueprinting in Irregularity Service Improvement, case Swissport Finland Ltd

The trend of concentrating to core competencies leads to outsourcing of non-core activities. One such activity is logistics, where the responsibility is given to third-party service providers. This means the service provider acts as an intermediary between the buyer and the end customer. This thesis concentrates on depicting the operational environment of one such service provider, Swissport Finland Ltd, and the improvement of their checked baggage irregularity service. The tools used for this work were service blueprinting, an illustrative method for service mapping, and failure modes and effects analysis. The theoretical part of the thesis offers a framework for using these tools for logistics services, while the empirical part consists of a study mostly qualitative in nature. Action research method was used for the service improvement research. According to the results of this study the combination of service blueprinting and FMEA can be used successfully for irregularity service improvement. The most important result was an enhanced irregularity process that has been found to alleviate earlier problems.

Mobile clinics in public health care: Integrated service offerings for rural elderly

This research is an analysis of the value and content of local service offerings that enable longer periods of living at home for elderly people. Mobile health care and new distribution services have provided an interesting solution in this context. The research aim to shed light on the research question, ‘How do we bundle services based on different customer needs?’ A research process consisting of three main phases was applied for this purpose. During this process, elderly customers were segmented, the importance of services was rated and service offerings were defined. Value creation and service offering provides theoretical framework for the research. The target group is South Karelia’s 60 to 90-year old individuals and the data has been acquired via a postal questionnaire. Research has been conducted as exploratory research utilizing the methods of quantitative and social network analysis. The main results of the report are identified customer segments and service packages that fits to the segments’ needs. The results indicate the needs of customers and the results are additionally analysed from the producer’s point of view. In addition to the empirical results, the used theory framework has been developed further in order for the service-related theories to be seen from the customer’s point of view and not just from the producer’s point of view.

Reframing the relationship between service design and operations: a service engineering approach

The significance of services as business and human activities has increased dramatically throughout the world in the last three decades. Becoming a more and more competitive and efficient service provider while still being able to provide unique value opportunities for customers requires new knowledge and ideas. Part of this knowledge is created and utilized in daily activities in every service organization, but not all of it, and therefore an emerging phenomenon in the service context is information awareness. Terms like big data and Internet of things are not only modern buzz-words but they are also describing urgent requirements for a new type of competences and solutions. When the amount of information increases and the systems processing information become more efficient and intelligent, it is the human understanding and objectives that may get separated from the automated processes and technological innovations. This is an important challenge and the core driver for this dissertation: What kind of information is created, possessed and utilized in the service context, and even more importantly, what information exists but is not acknowledged or used? In this dissertation the focus is on the relationship between service design and service operations. Reframing this relationship refers to viewing the service system from the architectural perspective. The selected perspective allows analysing the relationship between design activities and operational activities as an information system while maintaining the tight connection to existing service research contributions and approaches. This type of an innovative approach is supported by research methodology that relies on design science theory. The methodological process supports the construction of a new design artifact based on existing theoretical knowledge, creation of new innovations and testing the design artifact components in real service contexts. The relationship between design and operations is analysed in the health care and social care service systems. The existing contributions in service research tend to abstract services and service systems as value creation, working or interactive systems. This dissertation adds an important information processing system perspective to the research. The main contribution focuses on the following argument: Only part of the service information system is automated and computerized, whereas a significant part of information processing is embedded in human activities, communication and ad-hoc reactions. The results indicate that the relationship between service design and service operations is more complex and dynamic than the existing scientific and managerial models tend to view it. Both activities create, utilize, mix and share information, making service information management a necessary but relatively unknown managerial task. On the architectural level, service system -specific elements seem to disappear, but access to more general information elements and processes can be found. While this dissertation focuses on conceptual-level design artifact construction, the results provide also very practical implications for service providers. Personal, visual and hidden activities of service, and more importantly all changes that take place in any service system have also an information dimension. Making this information dimension visual and prioritizing the processed information based on service dimensions is likely to provide new opportunities to increase activities and provide a new type of service potential for customers.

Developing the Product Return Process of a Service Center With Lean Methods

Today lean-philosophy has gathered a lot of popularity and interest in many industries. This customer-oriented philosophy helps to understand customer’s value creation which can be used to improve efficiency. A comprehensive study of lean and lean-methods in service industry were created in this research. In theoretical part lean-philosophy is studied in different levels which will help to understand its diversity. To support lean, this research also presents basic concepts of process management. Lastly theoretical part presents a development model to support process development in systematical way. The empirical part of the study was performed by performing experimental measurements during the service center’s product return process and by analyzing this data. Measurements were used to map out factors that have a negative influence on the process flow. Several development propositions were discussed to remove these factors. Problems mainly occur due to challenges in controlling customers and due to the lack of responsibility and continuous improvement on operational level. Development propositions concern such factors as change in service center’s physical environment, standardization of work tasks and training. These factors will remove waste in the product return process and support the idea of continuous improvement.

Information and appearance - design creating value for wearable technology items in B2C markets

The objective of the thesis is to study the role of design in adding value for wearable technology (WT) items in B2C markets by applying previous value creation literature to the subject. The thesis investigates value creation through types of value perceived by the customer being functional/instrumental, experiential/hedonic, symbolic/expressive and cost/sacrifice. The data was collected in face-to-face interviews with both consumers and industry experts. The results suggest that value perceived by both experts and consumers in every end-user category was elementarily functional, however, design was considered to bring most added value to WT in the categories of health and medicine, infotainment, and fashion. Also, WT ought to have same characteristics as regular clothing in order to attract mass markets. The results of the study suggest that companies should invest in design in order to gain long-term user engagement.

Customer value assessment in business markets

Understanding how firms create, communicate, and deliver value to customers is a key factor when firms seek to differentiate in increasingly competitive and commoditized business markets. As product and price have become less important differentiators in many industries, suppliers are increasingly seeking ways to differentiate themselves based on delivered customer value. Therefore, to gain a holistic understanding on what their offerings are worth to the customer, suppliers need to conduct customer value assessment, which quantifies the impact of a supplier´s offering to customers’ costs and returns. However, from a managerial perspective, customer value assessment is the single most critical challenge for firms in business markets. Consequently, developing holistic frameworks for customer value assessment is seen as one of the most important research priorities for marketing research. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of customer value assessment in business markets. Business markets represent a context where an increasing number of industrial firms are transitioning from basic product offerings towards service-based and solution-oriented hybrid offerings, which emphasize value co-creation and realization in the long term, thus making it difficult to quantify their monetary value. This study employs exploratory and qualitative research design by applying inductive and discovery-oriented grounded theory and multiple case research methods. The empirical data comprise interviews with 61 managers from 12 industrial firms, including seven best practice firms in customer value assessment. The findings of this study show that customer value assessment is essentially a crossfunctional process, which involves several organizational functions. The process begins well before and continues long after the actual delivery, often until the end of a supplier´s offering’s life-cycle. Furthermore, the findings shed light on alternative strategies that firms in business markets can adopt to implement the customer value assessment process. Overall, the findings contribute to customer value research, the sales and organizational management literature, the service marketing and solutions business literature, and suggest several managerial implications on how firms in business markets can adopt a holistic approach to assess value created for customers.

Value co-creation in gaming the industry: A qualitative research on virtual discussion forums

This study discusses the procedures of value co-creation that persist in gaming industry. The purpose of this study was to identify the procedures that persist in current video gaming industry which answers the main research problem how value is co-created in video gaming industry followed by three sub questions: (i) What is value co-creation in gaming industry? (ii) Who participates in value co-creation in gaming industry? (iii) What are the procedures that are involved in value co-creation in gaming industry? The theoretical background of the study consists of literature relating to the theory of marketing i.e., notion of value, conventional understanding of value creation, value chain, co-creation approach, co-production approach. The research adopted qualitative research approach. As a platform of relationship researcher used web 2.0 tool interface. Data were collected from the social networks and netnography method was applied for analyzing them. Findings show that customer and company both co-create optimum level of value while they interact with each other and within the customers as well. However mostly the C2C interaction, discussions and dialogues threads that emerged around the main discussion facilitated to co-create value. In this manner, companies require exploiting and further motivating, developing and supporting the interactions between customers participating in value creation. Hierarchy of value co-creation processes is the result derived from the identified challenges of value co-creation approach and discussion forums data analysis. Overall three general sets and seven topics were found that explored the phenomenon of customer to customer (C2C) and business to customer (B2C) interaction/debating for value co-creation through user generated contents. These topics describe how gamer contributes and interacts in co-creating value along with companies. A methodical quest in current research literature acknowledged numerous evolving flows of value in this study. These are general management perspective, new product development and innovation, virtual customer environment, service science and service dominant logic. Overall the topics deliver various realistic and conceptual implications for using and handling gamers in social networks for augmenting customers’ value co-creation process.

Micro Data Repositories: Increasing the Value of Research on the Web

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Asiakasarvon selvittäminen ja palvelukonseptin kehittäminen muovialan pk-yrityksessä

Kahden yrityksen väliset transaktiot perustuvat pohjimmiltaan asiakkaan kokemaan arvoon, eli siihen, mitä hyötyjä asiakas kokee saavansa suhteessa niihin kustannuksiin, jotka se joutuu uhraamaan ne saavuttaakseen. Tämän arvon tulee parantaa asiakkaan asemaa suhteessa sen omaan kilpailutilanteeseen ja asiakkaisiin. Arvo voi muodostua tarjooman hinnoittelusta, mutta muita asiakasarvon ulottuvuuksia voivat olla muun muassa laatutekijät sekä asiakassuhteen ja toimittajan imagon vaikutukset. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, mitkä ulottuvuuden muodostavat asiakkaan kokeman arvon case-yrityksen toimialalla sen urakoitsija- ja jälleenmyyjäasiakkailleen segmenteissä. Lisäksi analysoidaan, kuinka tuotantoon keskittyneen yrityksen tulisi kehittää palvelukonseptiaan luodakseen lisäarvoa kyseisille segmenteille ja saavuttaakseen siten kilpailuetua markkinoilla. Tutkimus on tapaustutkimus, jonka tärkeimpänä aineistonkeruumenetelmänä toimivat 17 nykyisten, entisten ja potentiaalisten asiakkaiden teemahaastattelua. Tulokset osoittavat, että toimiala on haastava lisäpalveluiden kannalta, koska ne eivät ole sille tyypillisiä. Asiakkaiden näyttää olevan erityisen vaikea tunnistaa palveluita, joista ne olisivat valmiita maksamaan. Tämä johtaa tilanteeseen, jossa asiakasuskollisuus ei ole erityisen korkea, vaan etenkin jälleenmyyjäasiakkaat ostavat tuotteet pääosin hintaan perustuen. Selkeän lisäarvopalvelukonseptin luominen voikin parantaa asiakasuskollisuutta ja sitä kautta asiakkaan elinkaaren arvoa, mikä voi rikkoa markkinoiden perinteisiä toimintamalleja case-yrityksen eduksi.