Customer perceived value and the importance of information visualization in a B2B context : Case study of a Swedish low-volume, process-oriented manufacturing company

Sammanfattning: It was Thomas Babington Macaulay who once stated that “… logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images”. Recent research on visualization within the manufacturing industry has been focusing around the notion of how to improve performance measures, such as the effectiveness and efficiency of completing a task. Consequently, this led to the dimension of user experience in regard to a visualization becoming relatively neglected. Furthermore, it is mentioned that concepts which are created based on how they are perceived by the customer, have shown to be of significance when creating customer value. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis was to shine light on both of the dimensions of visualization, user performance and user experience, and to study their influence on customer perceived value (CPV) in a business-to-business (B2B) relationship.This thesis was designed as a single case study of a Swedish low-volume, process oriented manufacturing company. Moreover, the case study included two units of analysis, representing current clients involved in two different projects with the company at which the case study was conducted. It is stated that one of the application areas of visualization lies in communication and it can be utilized in order to effectively convey certain information. The information which was in focus in the focal study was the information which is collected during quality control activities performed during the manufacturing process.The findings of the thesis suggest that certain aspects of visualization can have an influence on the functional and emotional dimensions of CPV in a B2B relationship. The conceptually proposed model provides an expanded view on the dimensions of visualization and helps to demonstrate how they stand in relation to the dimensions of CPV, as well as the dimensions used to measure relationship strength in a B2B context. Hereby, the evidence collected during the case study demonstrates that certain relationships between visualization and CPV are suggested to be eminent empirically as well. Thus, suggesting that visualization is an important factor to consider for practitioners in their communication with the customer.