Wolfgang Ulaga

Relationship value and relationship quality: Broadening the nomological network of business‐to‐business relationships

Purpose – Established models of buyer-seller relationships do not reflect managerial emphasis on supplier performance evaluation when modelling business relationships. Proposes that relationship value should be included as a key constituent in such models. Aims to explore the constructs links with key constituents of relationship quality, i.e. commitment, satisfaction, and trust. Design/methodology/approach – A two-stage research design was used. First, depth-interviews were conducted with ten senior-level purchasing managers in US manufacturing companies. Second, data were gathered in a nation-wide mail survey among 400 purchasing professionals. Findings – The findings suggest that relationship value is an antecedent to relationship quality and behavioural outcomes in the nomological network of relationship marketing. Value displays a stronger impact on satisfaction than on commitment and trust. Value also directly impacts a customers intention to expand business with a supplier. In turn, its impact on the propensity to leave a relationship is mediated by relationship quality. Contrary to previous research, trust does not appear in this study as an antecedent of behavioural outcomes, but as a mediator of the satisfaction-commitment link. Research limitations/implications – Confirms the role of value as a key relationship building-block. Researchers should integrate this cognitive performance-based construct in models of business relationships. Limitations and research directions refer to the sampling procedure, the need to include the suppliers value perceptions, the possibility of conducting longitudinal research, and the opportunity to assess additional moderating variables. Practical implications – When the goal is to increase business with an existing customer, managers should focus on relationship value. In turn, when managers are concerned with the risk of customers leaving a relationship, they should focus on relationship quality. Trust appears as an important ingredient in stabilising existing business relationships. Originality/value – Stresses the pivotal role of relationship value in marketing. Contributes to a better fit between relationship marketing models and managerial practice in business markets.

Measuring Customer-Perceived Value in Business Markets: A Prerequisite for Marketing Strategy Development and Implementation

Delivering superior value to customers is an ongoing concern of management in many business markets of today. Knowing where value resides from the standpoint of the customer has become critical for suppliers. In this article, the construct of customer-perceived value is first assessed through a literature review. Then a multiple-item measure of customer value is developed, and our approach is illustrated by the marketing strategy development project of a major chemical manufacturer in international markets. The article finally discusses how the customer value audit can be linked to marketing strategy development and provides guidelines for managerial actions.

Hybrid Offerings: How Manufacturing Firms Combine Goods and Services Successfully

This article examines key success factors for designing and delivering combinations of goods and services (i.e., hybrid offerings) in business markets. Goods manufacturers, unlike pure service prov...

Original articleMeasuring Customer-Perceived Value in Business Markets: A Prerequisite for Marketing Strategy Development and Implementation

Delivering superior value to customers is an ongoing concern of management in many business markets of today. Knowing where value resides from the standpoint of the customer has become critical for suppliers. In this article, the construct of customer-perceived value is first assessed through a literature review. Then a multiple-item measure of customer value is developed, and our approach is illustrated by the marketing strategy development project of a major chemical manufacturer in international markets. The article finally discusses how the customer value audit can be linked to marketing strategy development and provides guidelines for managerial actions.

Customer Value in Business Markets An Agenda for Inquiry

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value construct among both practitioners and marketing researchers. The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to the different articles included in this special issue of Industrial Marketing Management on Customer Value in Business Markets. The issue takes a look at value from three different perspectives: value creation for the customer, value creation for the supplier, and joint buyer–seller value creation. Directions for future customer value research in the area of business marketing are provided.

Revenue and Profit Implications of Industrial Service Strategies

In many business markets, manufacturers seek service-led growth to secure their existing positions and continue to grow in increasingly competitive environments. Using longitudinal data from 513 German mechanical engineering companies and latent growth curve modeling, this study offers a fine-grained view of the financial performance implications of industrial service strategies. By disentangling the revenue and profit implications of industrial service strategies, findings reveal that such strategies increase both the level and the growth of manufacturing firms’ revenue streams. In contrast, they reduce the level but improve the growth of manufacturers’ profits. Results further suggest that services supporting the clients’ actions (SSC) and services supporting the supplier’s product (SSP) affect performance outcomes in different ways. SSCs directly affect revenue and profit streams. In turn, SSPs display only indirect effects on financial performance mediated through SSCs. A moderator analysis identifies two organizational contingencies that facilitate service business success: Only companies with decentralized decision-making processes and a high share of loyal customers can expect favorable financial results from industrial service strategies. In summary, this research provides significant insights and managerial guidance for turning service strategies into financial successes.

Complex and Strategic Decision Making in Organizations:: Implications for Personal Selling and Sales Management

This article seeks to understand complex or strategic decision making and suggest personal selling and sales management strategies to enable organizations to effectively sell in complex decision-making environments. To understand complex and strategic decision making, we conducted an in-depth examination of the manufacturing location selection decision-making process of five organizations. We propose sales management guidelines and directions for future theoretical investigations based on the decision-making processes. Specifically, implications for sales force selling complex and strategic products and services (e.g., location and technology platforms) are addressed. The results suggest an adaptation of national or key accounts may be the best sales strategy for selling products and services that entail complex and strategic decision making.

Linking Customer Value to Customer Share in Business Relationships

Marketing metrics represent a growing concern for practitioners and scholars alike. Among the performance measures at the individual account level, customer share emerges as a concept of growing interest, yet marketing lacks rigorous customer share metrics in business markets. In addition, the constructs position within the nomological net of relationship marketing in a business-to-business (B2B) context remains unclear. This research reports findings of a cross-sectional study among purchasing managers in U.S. manufacturing industries, which indicate a positive link between customer value and customer share in business relationships. Relationship benefits have a stronger impact on customer share than do relationship costs, such that sourcing and operations benefits appear to represent the most promising levers for effective customer share management. The results finally suggest that researchers should operationalize customer share in relative terms when investigating key supplier relationships across different industries.

Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer Share in Key Supplier Relationships

Marketing metrics have experienced a substantial growth of interest in recent years. From a managerial perspective, top management increasingly calls for “marketing accountability” pressuring marketers to produce metrics that document marketing’s ROI. From an academic perspective, there is a growing body of research focusing on performance metrics in marketing. As an illustration, the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) includes performance metrics and their impact on marketing decision making in its list of top-tier research priorities for 2006–2008.

Customer-Perceived Value in Business Relationships: A Cross-Sectional Survey Among Purchasing Managers in Germany

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value construct. Delivering superior value to customers is a major concern of management in many business markets of today. In addition, « value » is considered as a fundamental constituent of relationship marketing. In fact, delivering superior value to customers is key to creating and sustaining long-term industrial relationships. From an empirical point of view, however, it is still not clear how the construct interacts with other prominent marketing variables. For example, researchers have recently questioned the role of satisfaction and called for a replacement of the construct by customer value as a more powerful predictor of behavioral outcomes in business markets (Gross, 1997).