{"id":11882,"date":"2022-06-09T13:59:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T17:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/?p=11882"},"modified":"2022-06-09T13:59:23","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T17:59:23","slug":"reflections-on-solutions-development-from-a-relational-standpoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/2022\/06\/reflections-on-solutions-development-from-a-relational-standpoint\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on solutions development from a relational standpoint"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Guest article by Laura Colm, finalist of the 2022 SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to increased competition and commoditization threats, a growing number of manufacturing firms is turning to solution-offerings, with the aim of integrating products and services to provide an innovative and differentiated response to their customers\u2019 requests. Despite its attractiveness, such a business model change is not easy to implement, and the expected success often fails to materialize (Fang, Palmatier, and Steenkamp 2008; Nezami, Worm, and Palmatier 2018). In fact, the shift from a product to a solution not only entails changes in internal strategies and structures but also represents a radical change in the supplier-customer relationship. For instance, solutions imply a more intense co-creation between solution-actors, change their role within the relationship and necessarily unfold over time, thus requiring a continuous bilateral adaptation. However, despite the great attention that the solution-topic gained over time, solution development has not yet been sufficiently investigated from a supplier-customer relationship standpoint (Tuli, Kohli, and Bharadwaj 2007). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gap ultimately inspired my Ph.D. research and allowed me to deep-dive into a fascinating and relevant topic, both from an academic and a managerial standpoint. My Ph.D. position got sponsored by a worldwide leading B2B company that was undergoing a transition process from being a \u201ctraditional\u201d manufacturer to becoming a solution-provider, and I also got the amazing opportunity to get in touch and exchange thoughts with the welcoming and insightful SERVSIG community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the research I conducted for my dissertation entitled \u201cThe development of solution-offerings from a relationship management perspective\u201d (with my supervisor Prof. Torsten Bornemann and with Prof. Andrea Ordanini), adopted a relational governance-perspective to investigate the following questions: (1) Which are the governance tensions associated with solutions development at the relational level?; (2) Which are the counteracting governance mechanisms that actors should match to those tensions, in order to successfully resolve them?; (3) How do governance tensions evolve over the solution development process and how should mechanisms be adjusted accordingly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working on the solution development topic and focusing especially on the relational-governance aspect of it, has taught me (and made me understand even better!) the importance of the human component when it comes to the implementation of complex projects, in which a services logic becomes predominant. For this reason, I am continuing to further explore product-service solution development and the underlying supplier-customer relationship also in my current research, e.g., against the backdrop of increasing market uncertainty (due to Covid-19, international conflicts, supply chain constraints, electrification, etc.) and in the light of growing digitalization and omnichannel trends, as these have a strong impact on how companies and managers jointly develop solutions. Should anybody share my interest in this fascinating domain, I would be delighted to exchange thoughts, as well as share my experience with prospective Ph.D. students from the service community that might consider product-service solutions as their research focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Laura Colm
Researcher in Marketing and Sales
SDA Bocconi School of Management




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Photo credit: Dylan Gillis<\/a><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guest article by Laura Colm, finalist of the 2022 SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award. Due to increased competition and commoditization threats, a growing number of manufacturing firms is turning to solution-offerings, with the aim of integrating products and services to provide an innovative and differentiated response to their customers\u2019 requests. Despite its attractiveness, such a business model change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":11890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[855],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11891,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882\/revisions\/11891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}