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

offering, the Buyer still sees the Seller as being overly product focused and calls forincreased customization according to the customer’ s needs.“ … I think that the Seller is presently focusing to a great extent on what it costs tomanufacture an engine in the short term and transport it from one location toanother… and they are in a business to create power. Which is part of… they shouldsell power; they should see this turnkey service, total service in a whole new way. Andthey should customize it for the different needs that customers have. What suits usdoesn’t necessarily suit someone else.” (Interview: Buyer 9)The described situation can be seen to be leading to a situation of mismatch betweencompany goals and is a challenge for developing a partnership between the companies. Thechallenge is to find common goals for the partnership and identify the areas in which valuecan be co-created through cooperation.This situation can be seen as an opportunity for the Seller to develop its business innew directions. If the customer is not willing to pay for what is offered, it is necessary tostart thinking of new offerings and new logics for earning. This is a chance to let theorganization learn and to elevate the business into a new level, perhaps a more sophisticatedone. The Buyer is a demanding customer that is asking for a more “ intelligent” offering -something that supports its current business situation - a situation that is different from whathas been in the past.The relationship between the Buyer and the Seller’ s service organization was said to behurt by the riding crew episode. People working in the Seller service organization felt thatthe Buyer had taken away their business. In my interviews the Seller management still saidthat they were struggling to convince the rest of the organization that the riding crew is afact of life and that the Seller has to learn to accept and make the best of the situation.“ For service this was maybe a dramatic… and still is a dramatic event. They still thinkthat the riding crew takes away business from us,(… ). And there was a mutualunderstanding in the way that BR9 said to the Seller that if we can’t provide theservice that he wants he would do it himself. He would hire people from us who knowthe engine technically, that is no problem, and then he would recruit crew for xx-xxdollars per hour. When I presented this for the management for service, theyconcluded that this is not a business where we want to be… so that’s fine and dandy!One cannot force anyone to buy something that they do not want to buy. This allmeant that we were not able to deliver the product that he wanted to purchase. Wesaid that it is not our business… and it was fine with that.” (Interview: Seller 1)109