Technology as a Driver for Changing Customer-Provider Interfaces in Industrial Service Production

Christian Kowalkowski; Per-Olof Brehmer

Title:

Author:

Christian Kowalkowski: Department of Management and Engineering, LinkÃ¶ping University, Sweden Per-Olof Brehmer: Department of Management and Engineering, LinkÃ¶ping University, Sweden

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Year:

2007

Conference:

10th QMOD Conference. Quality Management and Organiqatinal Development. Our Dreams of Excellence; 18-20 June; 2007 in Helsingborg; Sweden

Issue:

026

Article no.:

029

No. of pages:

Publication type:

Abstract and Fulltext

Published:

2008-02-15

Series:

LinkÃ¶ping Electronic Conference Proceedings

ISSN (print):

1650-3686

ISSN (online):

1650-3740

Publisher:

LinkÃ¶ping University Electronic Press; LinkÃ¶pings universitet

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The trend in manufacturing firms towards the provision of services related to the produced goods has been highlighted by several authors (e.g. Henkel et al.; 2004; Howells; 2004). Services can be critical for nurturing the customer relationship and for enabling more sophisticated; process-orientated offerings with higher margins than product sales (Mathieu; 2001; Oliva and Kallenberg; 2003). Besides; new industrial services represent a key source of growth for many firms (de Brentani; 1995). However; when analyzing the service operations of manufacturers it is not enough to focus on the internal service organization (e.g. front and back office) as the customer also is a source of product inputs (Hill; 1977); and a participant in the service production process (GrÃ¶nroos and Ojasalo; 2004). New technology is an important driver for new offerings and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications can be used to improve manufacturing firms’ existing service processes and develop new; more advanced services and solutions (Kowalkowski; forthcoming). ICT may initiate a radical transformation of traditional customer-provider interfaces (Nambisan; 2002) and the firm’s internal service processes through standardization (Sundbo; 1994). Nevertheless; the impact of ICT on industrial service processes is insufficiently examined as most studies do not focus on B2B relationships (cf. Ritter and Walter; 2006) and if so; focus is often on product salesmen; not on service personnel (e.g. Hunter and Perreault; 2007; Ledingham et al.; 2006; Tanner and Shipp; 2005). This paper fills this gap by exploring how ICT is affecting and driving changing service processes and customer interfaces of capital goods manufacturers. A framework for analyzing service organizations developed by Larsson and Bowen (1989) serves as the theoretical basis of this study and two in-depth case studies illustrate the phenomenon.

Keywords: Service processes; Industrial services; Customer-provider relationships; Front office; Back office; Information and communication technologies

10th QMOD Conference. Quality Management and Organiqatinal Development. Our Dreams of Excellence; 18-20 June; 2007 in Helsingborg; Sweden

Author:

Christian Kowalkowski, Per-Olof Brehmer

Title:

Technology as a Driver for Changing Customer-Provider Interfaces in Industrial Service Production

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10th QMOD Conference. Quality Management and Organiqatinal Development. Our Dreams of Excellence; 18-20 June; 2007 in Helsingborg; Sweden

Author:

Christian Kowalkowski, Per-Olof Brehmer

Title:

Technology as a Driver for Changing Customer-Provider Interfaces in Industrial Service Production

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