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

” He (BR9) often talks about the unofficial relationship that the Seller had with themduring his time at his previous company. Previously he was in charge of technicaloperations at another shipping company, their technical manager. He says to me: whycan you not get this to work like it did in back in the old days? Back in those days wetook the chief engineers and his technical staff out to the woods, we had sauna anddrinks and told stories and went through all the problems and solved them ... in fact inthe same way, but without the formal commitment, but between two local groups ofpeople. I mean we had the same language and the same background and we were fewenough that we could fit into a sauna together. And this worked well... and I thinkthat... what BR9 experienced during the timesin the past is what he aims at in the caseof the Buyer, but it has to be done in a different way. (Interview: Seller 2)During these times the Buyer and the Seller started discussing different ways of dealingwith the needs of the Buyer, how the Seller could help the Buyer to create a safe andreliable fleet in an economically defendable way. People from both marine and servicemanagement at the Seller traveled to see Mr BR9 in order to work out an understanding.However, the parties were not able to come to an agreement on how service work was to becarried out and at what price. As a consequence the Buyer made the decision in 1997 to startbuilding up its own service organization and take care of service work in-house.6.3.1 The the Buyer riding crewThe years before the first cooperation agreement were turbulent for both companies and forthe interaction between them. In 1997 the Buyer decided to set up their own, in-houseservice and maintenance crew due to failed negotiations of a service and maintenanceagreement with the Seller. The setting up of an in-house crew for service and maintenance(will be referred to as riding crew) was a measure taken in order to cut operational costsboth by lowering the cost for service work and by increasing the level of quality andreliability. At the end of 1998 the Buyer recruited Mr BR4 from the Seller to manage theriding crew. Mr BR4 had worked in service for the Seller in the US for 10 years.“ I can very well recall when BR9 said that he is going to set up his own riding crew ifwe are not able to support him. As we were not able to support him, he went aheadand set up a riding crew. This was in the year 1997 ... yes, exactly in 1997. Due to thefact that they did not get the needed help, to the cost that they wanted from us. BR9concluded that it is better and cheaper for him to pay xx dollars per hour to his ownpeople than to pay yy dollars to us. First he bought Mr BR4 from us and then hestarted to recruit Philippinos.” (Interview: Seller 2)105