Unwrapping the Customer Value concept and its application within an Industrial Manufacturing Firm : A Case Study within Husqvarna

Sammanfattning: Traditional manufacturing companies were reliant on selling their product centred offerings towards customers. However, technological developments, volatile market environments as well as calls for more personalised experiences from customers, have made the traditional product-centred approaches less effective. Manufacturing companies have thus been looking to adapt to the previously mentioned circumstances by transitioning towards a mix of products together with physical and digital services. Although there is a big interest from manufacturing companies to undergo such changes to adapt, no clear empirical evidence has emerged for cases where companies have undergone a full transition towards product-service offerings. Despite the lack of empirical evidence, companies are still interested in slowly building up towards offering comprehensive product-service offerings. One such company is the Swedish based manufacturing company, Husqvarna. A company which has a rich history in product development and has shown its capabilities for adaptation in the past through the manufacturing of different types of products, but also in the present with their successful releases of automatic lawn mowers. However, the company has further planned to expand upon their efforts of pursuing product-service offerings. Through internal discussions with the company, it was decided that this pursuit requires the key understanding of how the concept of customer value changes between pure product offerings and integrated product-service offerings. It was thus decided that the purpose of this thesis report would be to look internally, to focus on understanding the different interpretations of the customer value concept as well as the practical implications of these interpretations. The main methodology used in this thesis report was a case study approach, which included informants from three separate parts of the organisation. A total of twelve interviews were performed, where ten interviews were with employees of the company, that involved managers, product specialists and product owners. The last two interviews involved professors from KTH as theoretical guidance early in the research process. This data gathering involved literature search together with semi-structured interviews. Data was then analysed by using automated transcribing tools, the transcriptions were then coded through an inductive approach inspired by Gioia et al. (2012). Findings from this study highlight that different teams within separate departments can have similar interpretations regarding the customer value concept. That being the belief that delivering experiences to customers is the key part of the offering that creates value for customers. The company is also more recently reliant on internal collaborations between different departments, communication issues were found in the cases where different departments did not have a similar interpretation of customer value. Thus, highlighting the importance of new communication strategies within organisations reliant on internal collaborations for more subjective concepts such as customer value. The concept of customer value was used practically in early pre-development stages, for gathering and understanding customer needs, but also in testing phases at the end of development for validating and verifying that the intended experience is delivered. The last thing to highlight is that both the case company and other companies need to develop or improve their relational capabilities both with customers and other network actors to offer better services. In the case of manufacturing companies, this means developing relationships beyond just business and creating opportunities and empowering customers to take part in more parts of the development process, not just the early and late phases.