Co-development: Information exchange in main role

The findings of this study provided some examples of co-development between the focal firms and customers in all cases. Co-development took place through information exchange, customer participation in service delivery, customer pilots, and joint development projects. However, variation in the co-development forms between the cases was moderately high.

In all cases, the basic services covered by the study necessitated cooperation in the form of information exchange and participation by the customers in the service delivery stage. The exchanged information was related to the practicalities in service delivery, and it was not about giving feedback to the service provider, for example.

The issue was strongly addressed in the cases of DEVICE and FLOW, where all interviewees addressed the issue to some extent. In contrast, in the case of SCALE, much less attention was paid to the matter, and only a few interviewees explicitly addressed the issue.

In the case of DEVICE, a need for overall orientation and instructions as a prerequisite for service delivery was highlighted by a majority of the interviewees of both the focal firm and customers. It covered issues, such as customer’s site, safety, and contact persons.

Orientation for an outsider [e.g., focal firm service technician] is always organized (…) it deals with our safety instructions (…) it is about our hazardous gases (…) moving on the site (…) basics like these (maintenance manager, BC6, DEVICE).

The same applied to the information about the devices, machines, or systems under maintenance. For example, providing relevant technical details (serial number, product type, etc.) and maintenance history was pointed out as a prerequisite for service success by some interviewees. Furthermore, scheduling maintenance actions was usually dependent on customers and required information exchange between

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the focal firm and customers. In general, neither the case companies nor the customers highlighted information exchange as a major challenge. According to a few interviewees, however, problems in keeping the schedules and informing the focal firm had occasionally caused resentment on both sides.

In the case of FLOW, the situation was different because the focal firm’s services were not related to particular equipment and focal firm employees constantly worked in close interaction with customers. An issue that several interviewees indicated was forecasts for customer’s production volumes for both short and long terms. When customers provided the information in time (i.e., in advance), it helped the focal firm to adapt its resources and optimize service delivery.

It often is a win-win situation for both of us. They get services cheaper because we can adapt our personnel, systems and materials accordingly (development manager, CF3, FLOW).

The challenge pointed out by some interviewees was that even the customer did not always know how their volumes change or the forecasts were not extremely accurate.

Within the cases studied, customer participation in service delivery took the forms of joint planning between the focal firm and customers; preparatory work, supervision and inspections; and providing tools, materials, resources, and infrastructure to focal firms.

In the installation stage, we go through them [delivered goods]. Then, of course, are installation meetings, where we look after the delivery progress (…) we make installation inspections and a start-up inspection at the initialization, and after that are pre-runs and warranty runs (maintenance manager, BC3, DEVICE).

All services covered by the study seemed to require some actions from the customers. Nevertheless, customer participation in service delivery was especially prominent in the case of DEVICE, where an overwhelming majority of the interviewees somehow highlighted the issues.

Despite the integral role of information exchange and customer participation in service delivery, it was neither acknowledged as a key issue from the portfolio development perspective nor as a central target for improvements by the focal firm interviewees. There were also examples of cooperation among the cases studied that were particularly aimed at developing services together, that is, piloting new services with customers and developing methods and tools together. Moreover, customer

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pilots were not a standard way of working for any of the focal firms, but there was an increasing interest in them by the focal firms.

In the case of SCALE, some focal firm interviewees explained that the firm had identified a need to involve customers more strongly in service development than what had been done in the past. For example, SCALE had asked feedback from some of their key customers on how to productize services.

When these services have now been productized, they have been looked through with certain key customers (…) and then the feedback what we got, we have tried to take [it]

into account (CFO, AF5, SCALE).

The focal firm of SCALE had also engaged in customer pilots and allowed some customers to try out the services that were under development. As another example, the focal firm had developed a mobile application that had been tested by a few customers. According to focal firm interviewees, the results of these trials had been encouraging, and the firm had decided to pursue customer piloting as it was regarded as a potential way to promote service development.

In the similar vein, the focal firm interviewees of DEVICE acknowledged that customers’ role in service development had been rather low, and some interviewees argued that they need to increase customer involvement through customer piloting by allowing them to test and give feedback during the service development stage.

Some services offered by the focal firm, for example, life-cycle auditing services, had already been developed in a more co-operative manner. In contrast, with some other services, the degree of co-development had been low, and an increase in customer involvement was considered as more necessary.

Co-development in the case of FLOW was more focused on process development and consultancy services (see, 4.5.1). Nevertheless, a few examples were provided that were related to the co-development of the current basic services.

For example, the focal firm had developed a packing line together with one of the participating customers.

They had developed in cooperation with us a sort of packing line by which the boxes were assembled (…) it was our property, [and] that moved to them (…) so then they could start to make boxes also for others (production technology manager, CC5, FLOW).

Later, the ownership of the line was shifted to the focal firm, and it became integrated into the focal firm’s service portfolio.

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