Value Co-Creation in Industrial Buyer-Seller Partnerships ... - Doria

has expired the ship owner deals directly with all the different suppliers instead of goingthrough the yard.The after-sales/operations phaseThe operations phase (or after-sales phase, as it normally is called among the equipmentsuppliers) is a phase that normally lasts from 20-25 years in the case of ships. The length ofthis period depends on how long the ship is in traffic or how long the owner has it in itspossession. This is the phase when the ship is in traffic preferably every day and generatesas much revenue as possible. This means that the ship has to be run as cost efficiently aspossible. This is when the Seller helps the Buyer to maintain, service, and monitor theoperations of the fleet so that it can be run as safely, reliably, and cost efficiently aspossible.The life cycle of a ship, the process from the new-building project to operations isillustrated by the figure below.4 ¡ ! "##$£% &%4 £52/.67')(+*-, ./10 ©2¦3Figure 5.4: The major phases of the “ Ship” projectIn the case of the Buyer and the Seller, the business relationship is in all of the abovementionedphases simultaneously. As the Buyer has a number of ships of different age andnew ships constantly under construction, the relationship is in the sales, project, warranty,and operational phases at the same time. This causes a situation that demands a greatamount of involvement and communication between people from different parts and levelsof both organizations at all times.A tailor –made customer ionterfaceDue to the great amount of communication and coordination between the Seller and theBuyer, and to the facts that the Buyer is considered a strategically important customer forthe Seller, and that there has been a decision to develop a partnership between thecompanies, the Seller has tailor-made its organization towards the Buyer in order to improveand smoothen the handling of the relationship with the customer.94