C1 – Long-Term Relationship Evolution
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The objective of this research project was to comprehensively investigate relationships as they evolve over time towards, during, and after the implementation of value-centered offerings in selling organizations. To reach this goal, we structured our work program into three separate studies, which contribute to our understanding of the development of relationships in the context of value-centered offerings. Our first study contributes to the understanding of contexts, i.e., organizational structures, within the supplier firm, on behalf of the customer, and joint aspects, that enable the sale of value-centered offerings. Our findings show that from the interplay of various organizational structures, different servitization trajectories emerge, characterized by the type of offering sold and the nature of the business interaction. Thus, managers need to consider the interplay of these structures to find a suitable servitization trajectory and successfully implement valuecreating sales. The second study addresses the role of customers in selling value-centered offerings, which has received limited attention in previous literature. We investigate drivers of customer adaptiveness as well as to what extent adaptiveness enhances solution effectiveness. Our findings show that customer adaptiveness increases solution effectiveness and that suppliers can enhance adaptiveness by leveraging references. Thereby, we help suppliers to manage customer relationships during the implementation of value-centered offerings, and customers identify whether they should opt for a value-centered offering or rather focus on stand-alone components. Lastly, in our third study, we address the increasing importance of information and communication technology to manage and foster relationships after the implementation of value-creating sales. Our findings show that ICT helps salespeople to reduce role ambiguity, and, depending on their tenure and relationship duration with customers, they are also able to reduce perceptions of conflicting demands in their jobs in increasingly complex environments. Thus, we provide insights into when and how salespeople benefit from ICT when working in complex environments, i.e., after the implementation of value-centered offerings. All three studies make substantial contributions to the literature as outlined in our report above, and open up new interesting avenues for future research. Unexpected occurrences Our original goals, namely 1) identifying strategies to foster relationships before value-creating offerings are implemented, 2) identifying strategies to help suppliers to effectively manage relationships during the implementation of value-creating offerings, and 3) identifying strategies to manage and deepen the relationship with customers after implementing value-creating offerings, were all slightly modified and concretized. We made these adaptations for three main reasons. First, the willingness of companies to cooperate in line with our ambitions outlined in the original proposal was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, due to Dr. Tillmann’s transition to the University of Zurich, we had to re-structure the program and integrate some of his work program into our part of the project. Third, throughout the project execution, we learned that these adaptations made the overall work program wellsuited for the scope of the project.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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“Relationship Configurations for Selling Servitized Offerings: A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis,” Proceedings of the ISMS Marketing Science Virtual Conference, Rochester, NY, USA.
Kramer, Victoria, Manfred Krafft & Kaj Storbacka
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“Enhancing Solution Effectiveness: The Role of Customer Adaptiveness,” Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference, Monterey, CA, USA
Kramer, Victoria, Manfred Krafft, Stefan Worm & Sundar Bharadwaj
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“Kunden im Lösungsgeschäft: Welche Rolle spielen sie und was macht Lösungen für Kunden effektiver?,“ Marketing Review St. Gallen, 3.2022, 14-20.
Kramer, Victoria & Manfred Krafft
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When and how information and communication technology orientation affects salespeople’s role stress: the interplay of salesperson characteristics and environmental complexity. European Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 659–682.
Kramer, Victoria & Krafft, Manfred
