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

6.3.2 The riding crew as a trigger for developing the offeringThe establishment of the Buyer riding crew can be seen as a critical event in thedevelopment of the relationship between the companies. On one hand it is a manifestationof a failure in cooperation, a failure in using each other’ s resources in a meaningful way,and a failure in negotiations between parties. On the other hand, when assessing thesituation at the present moment - which is in the future of the moment when the decision ofbuilding up the riding crew was taken – the event can be seen as something that has shapedthe partnership and developed the partnership in a certain direction. Due to the shortfall ofservice business that the establishment of the riding crew implied for the Seller, thecompany was forced to re-think the offering towards the customer. This forced the Seller tobe open minded, open for new ways of thinking about earnings logic - to develop and moveto the next level of serving the customer and managing the relationship. The establishmentof the riding crew can be seen to have served as an eye-opener for the Seller management.The incident put this particular customer in focus at a specific, critical time, which resultedin the realization of the criticality of this particular customer relationship for the Seller.During the last five years the Seller has started to buld up its own service organizationin order to build up capability and to widen the service scope. The Seller emphasizes avision of being a solutions provider, taking care of a wider scope of customer needs. Theservice is not limited to the engine room, but is available for any service undertaking. Atpresent the Seller has several service units on four continents. The vice president for serviceat the Seller sees that the customers’ business seldom is to produce power - the customer isin his own business focusing on something else - and power production is a matter of lowinterest. Therefore the Seller offers to take care of running the power plant and provide theneeded power to the customer.“ It is not the customers’ business to run diesel engines, it is something else. But theyalso need electricity for which they pay a price per kilowatt. What is acting as a breakin the shipping business is that they have to have crew on board. A crew that has to becertified and have know-how and… this leads to the ship owners thinking that once wehave the people on-board they might as well do something, do the maintenance at thesame time.” (Interview: Seller 9)It can be said that the strategic visions of the Seller and the Buyer are somewhatcontradictory. On one hand there is the supplier that wants to provide total solutions bytaking care of all matters related to operation and service for the customer, while on theother hand there is a customer who asks for turnkey services, but at the same time choosesto do service in-house. Although the Seller has taken measures to widen the scope of the108