Pekka Töytäri

Bridging the theory to application gap in value-based selling

Purpose – Increasing pressure to reduce costs and skepticism of promised value‐added are forcing suppliers to produce tangible proof of the monetary value they create for customers. The academic literature on the practical activities related to value‐based selling remains sparse. This paper aims to bridge the gap between the abundant theoretical customer value frameworks and implementation practices to create a practical foundation for value‐based sales activities in firms that aim to become value creators.Design/methodology/approach – Based on two case studies, the authors map the best practices in customer value quantification from the point of view of industrial customers, and study value‐based sales processes to uncover the value‐based sales activities for implementing and profiting from customer value.Findings – The results suggest a customer‐focused sales process that centers on creating value, quantifying the value created, and creating a situation where customer and supplier maximize their utility...

Assessing value co-creation and value capture potential in services: a management framework

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managerial practices to assess value creation and value capture potential in longitudinal buyer-seller relationships, and proposes a framework for evaluating such potential for maximizing sales function efficiency. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on an exploratory multi-case study with seven internationally operating companies from a variety of industries, with the aim of building the framework for sales opportunity management. The framework is then refined in eight workshops with 21 companies. Findings – The findings suggest that industrial companies need to develop new capabilities to efficiently manage value selling opportunities at different stages of the opportunity lifecycle. Research limitations/implications – The underlying sales approach of the research is proactive value selling in a service business context. The findings may not be generalizable into other sales contexts. Practical implications – The paper provides pr...

Overcoming Institutional and Capability Barriers to Smart Services

Smart services have potential to improve value creation and profitability of industrial firms and their customers. Defined as services that go beyond the upkeep and upgrades, traditionally bundled with products and helping companies to build intelligence— that is, awareness and connectivity. Combined with digitalization, services have had a major role in improving efficiency of existing offering and enabling new channels for service delivery. Implementing the change toward smart services is challenging. Research shows that especially industrial companies maintain institutionalized beliefs and attitudes impeding the transformation, lack capabilities and resources for implementation, and face industrywide norms and relationship practices resisting the change. The study explores the barriers in adopting smart services and is implemented as a multi-case study among six globally operating industrial companies. Our findings indicate classification of internal barriers, capability gaps, and external barriers, contributing a framework that describes the interplay between institutional forces and capability development in organizational change.

Selling Solutions by Selling Value

Selling new innovative services and solutions demands a proactive and customer value-focused sales approach, and new capabilities and resources to support the approach. Firms find the transformation challenging and lack tools to succeed. In this chapter, I discuss the internal and external challenges of implementing value-based solution selling, illustrate the involved processes and their connections, and explicate the key activities of the value-based solution selling process. This chapter embeds the sales transformation into a broader change of business logic, analyzes the value-based solution selling from the value proposition communication and differentiation method, and provides a managerially relevant framework to guide the implementation.

A Value Proposition Development Framework for Industrial Service

Value proposition is a key concept in the research on service and in the practice of service management. Value propositions are described as tools to communicate and motivate a joint value creation opportunity among involved organizations and stakeholders. The future orientation and intangibility of service places value proposition as the key element of competitive service business. However, the concept of value proposition if often vaguely defined, the underlying theoretical concepts missing, and the managerial practices to create value propositions unexplored. This study investigates how valuefocused industrial companies build value propositions by conducting customer value research. Building on our findings, we suggest theoretical and managerial frameworks for value proposition development.

Material Intelligence: Cross-Organizational Collaboration Driven by Detailed Material Data

The application of the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has the potential to reshape inter-organizational collaboration across industries. This study explores the influences of the use of IoT for information sharing in the steel industry networks. Shared data may have multiple uses, including optimization, integration, automatization, and adaptation of objects in their environments. To date, research on IoT has mainly proposed its use in independent nodes and clusters possessing excessive data from their own actions. Conversely, our study emphasizes the benefits that accrue from intensified collaboration. Our findings emphasize that IoT enabled material intelligence can restructure the existing steel industry networks. This can be achieved by bridging the structural holes in the inter-organizational networks.