Pauliina Ulkuniemi

Modularity in developing business services by platform approach

Purpose – This study aims to explore the literature related to modularity in developing and manufacturing physical products in order to employ the idea of modularity into the business services context.Design/methodology/approach – In order to answer the defined research question, the authors construct an empirically grounded model for modular service platform. The research design follows an abductive logic beginning with the construction of a theoretical pre‐understanding and elaborating upon it empirically. Streams of literature that are applied are service marketing and operations and product development and modularity research including product architecture design. In the empirical part of the study, the authors elaborate on these issues through a qualitative single case study.Findings – The results show that the developed modular service platform including four modularity dimensions: service, process, organisational and customer interface dimensions can be used to create value in business services.Ori...

Developing the value perception of the business customer through service modularity

Purpose – The present challenge for many service firms is to develop an offering that is flexible and open for tailoring and at the same time achieves efficiency through standardizing processes. Modularity has been suggested as being one tool for achieving this. The goal of the present study is to find out how services provided in modular form (here referred to as service modularity) can exert an influence on the value perception of the customer in the professional services field.Design/methodology/approach – Empirical part consists of a case study of a large provider of professional services involving construction, engineering, procurement and project management service. Data were gathered by semi structured theme interviews of representatives of the case company and representatives of two of its customers.Findings – The modular processes had an influence on the customers expectations that are related to the experienced quality of the service, and hence they create value for the customer. In addition to...

COTS component acquisition in an emerging market

Component-based software engineering has generated much interest among researchers and in industry. Purported CBSE benefits include lower development costs, higher productivity, and more manageable quality of the developed software. But todays software component market is far from mature - it is, at best, in the early emerging phase and hence lacks industry standards and management guidelines. Understanding the COTS component markets evolution and dynamics can help buyers make more effective component choices and ultimately influence market development.

The role of digital channels in industrial marketing communications

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate industrial marketing communications tools and the role of digital channels. The research draws from the literature on industrial marketing communications to examine its goals and intended utilization in industrial firms. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical multiple case study conducted among six industrial firms examines the current state of digital marketing communications (DMC). Findings – The study gleans three research insights. First, although DMC is one of the most important industrial marketing communication tools, firms have not yet used it to its full potential. Second, firms use DMC to enhance customer relationship communications, support sales and create awareness. Third, firms have not used social media tools as a part of DMC as widely as traditional digital tools. Research limitations/implications – Although the findings mirror those in DMC literature in general and industrial marketing communications in particular, they put more...

Business model scenarios in mobile advertising

In connection with advances in wireless technology, mobile advertising (m-advertising) has been identified one of the most promising potential business areas. Even though it offers revenue-generating opportunities for a number of different actors, the possibilities have not been utilised or studied. The purpose of this paper is to explore what kind of business network could evolve around a novel m-advertising service. Using a scenario planning method, this study suggests four network models, each describing three elements, for example, the mobile service, the roles of the actors and the value-creating exchanges between them. This study also evaluates the scenarios by discussing their value creation potential.

Analysis of content creation in social media by B2B companies

Purpose – The present study aims to examine how business-to-business (B2B) marketers can influence content creation in social media. Social media tools are becoming an interesting component of B2B marketing because of the roles of personal relationships and interactions in these markets. However, research has not approached social media content creation from a B2B marketing perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Social media tools are becoming an interesting component of B2B marketing because of the roles of personal relationships and interactions in these markets. However, research has not approached social media content creation from a B2B marketing perspective. The present study examines how B2B marketers can influence content creation in social media. Findings – The paper proposes that B2B firms engaging in social media as part of their marketing efforts should carefully consider the roles and activities of various users, which are directed to and by different internal and external users. B2B comp...

Creating value for the business service buyer through modularity

The present study explores how modularity makes services visible and how it enables the customers to participate in service co-creation. We review the literature on buying business services to determine the buying challenges and we define service modularity and especially concentrate on defining the attributes of a modular service offering. Theoretical framework describing the connections of the attributes and challenges in service buying is elaborated through a single case study of a modular service in a professional service firm. We argue that a modular service offering can help customers by increasing the visibility of the service offering.

Dynamic effects of business cycles on business relationships

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to identify the effects of business cycles on industrial business‐to‐business relationships within extremely volatile industries.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is an in‐depth case study on Outotec plc, a leading provider of technologies for the mining and metal industries.Findings – The study identifies the changes in a business relationship during a business cycle as the dominance between the parties and the cooperative and the competitive nature of the relationship alternate.Practical implications – The study identifies ways to smooth the effects of business cycles in extremely volatile industries from the viewpoint of a project‐based technology provider.Originality/value – While a significant amount of macroeconomic research on cycles and a few studies on industry‐specific business cycles can be found, this study is a rare example of company‐specific research on surviving business cycles.

Marketing challenges in the software component business

Software components are complex, technology-intensive products that require special competencies not only from the people who are developing the components, but also from the people who market and sell the components. Technical challenges and competencies have already been discussed rather extensively in literature in terms of software component engineering; however, somewhat surprisingly, the marketing aspects have not yet been the foci of current research. In this paper, we aim to fill from our own end the gap in research on how to market software components. The purpose of this paper is to increase our knowledge about the challenges related to marketing commercial software components and to make propositions as to how to overcome these challenges. As the pre-existing literature about marketing commercial software components is still rather non-existent, the present study has a strong empirical focus and follows inductive research methods.

The strategic hybrid orientation and brand performance of B2B SMEs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to learn how strategic hybrid orientation – constructed from brand and market orientations – is related to the brand awareness, brand credibility, and financial performance of business-to-business (B2B) small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach The questionnaire was used in a survey to collect data from 250 Finnish B2B SMEs. The sampled firms were categorized into four clusters according to a two-by-two matrix, and their relationships with the brand performance outcomes were examined using one-way ANOVA and multiple regression. Findings The results indicate that strategic hybrid orientation is positively related to all three dimensions of brand performance, showing that two dissimilar orientations can complement each other in improving brand performance outcomes. However, the strength of complementary interaction seems to vary depending on the degree to which brand- and market-oriented attributes dominate in a firm’s strategy. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence to support the concept of strategic hybrid orientation for branding in B2B SMEs. This study aims to contribute to existing research on SME branding by capitalizing on B2B branding and strategic management literatures.