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

decision to pursue a collaborative strategy with the Seller in order to make the best out ofthe situation. The decisions made in the past of installing the Seller engines on the vesselsimpacted on the present situation of dependence between the parties.By taking the future aspect into the discussion it is obvious that by adding on to theSeller engine park and getting more involved with each other, both the Buyer and the Sellerget more interdependent. As interdependence increases the possibilities of exploiting thevalue co-creation potential and economizing also increase. As the parties interact more, domore business and involve more of each other’ s resources, interdependence is created. Thisinterdependence creates potential for value co-creation.Regarding business volume, the Buyer is not the most important customer for theSeller. There are cruise customers that are more important volume-wise. This is why somepeople in the Seller organizations do not quite understand why they put in so much work onthe Buyer and put up with so much with them. Some people feel that there are moreimportant customers to work on. However, there is a strong commitment from key people inthe management of the two companies who have a strong vision about the partnership andwant to develop it further. Their commitment and vision is based upon a long experience indoing business in the marine industry as well as a history of working together and trusting ineach other’ s capabilities. Not everybody, on the operational levels in the organizations, seethe total benefits of the partnership as clearly as management does.The cooperation agreement means that we work closely together with the Buyer to helpthem plan their maintenances and schedule their maintenance and make sure thatthey’re getting the optimal discount. And part of the cooperation agreement is also thetechnical support, which, that’s not really as miserable as the discount part of theagreement but there’s a big value to the technical support and SR5’s role.” (Interview:Seller 4)“ There are two key performance indicators that BR1 and I have identified to measurewhether or not the cooperation agreement is a success. One of them for the customerside is they getting the maximum discount. Are they taking advantage of the discountstructure, from our side is: “ Are we getting paid in timely fashion.” (Interview: Seller4)Obviously the communication and getting people committed to the idea of the partnership isa challenge for its future success – to get people on all levels in the organization to see therelationship as a totality instead of optimizing a small portion of it.167