5. Discussion and summary
5.4. Further suggestions for research
A few potential ideas for further research were identified during the making of this research.
One of the most interesting point to research would be of the additional features offered via e-commerce. To get a more broad knowledge and understanding about the customers appreciation of different additional features could be helpful for making e-commerce’s better and more useful for customers, adding to a value that the customer gets by using e-commerce.
It would be also interesting to know what are the biggest factors that affect the customers e-commerce implementation positively, but also negatively. With this knowledge, the beginning of e-commerce usage could be made more customer friendly, making the implementation more likely.
39 Also, considering that this thesis was done for a gas company operating in Finland, the customer behavior might differ in other fields of business. For example, one could imagine that if a business operating in the industrial apparel industry makes an e-commerce available for its B2B customers, the factors driving the customer behavior might differ a lot from the results of this study. For that reason, it would be interesting to study the e-commerce and its impact on customer behavior even on a broader scale of industries. It is also important to realize that in the Finnish gas industry operates just a few companies, so conducting a study from a more competitive business field could give interesting results about e-commerce and its impact on customer behavior.
40
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44 Appendices
Appendix 1. Interview questions for Management Job title:
Responsibilities:
Educational background:
1. E-Commerce
•
What do you think about e-commerce?•
How ordering via e-commerce compares to the traditional ordering (phone, email etc.)?•
What benefits e-commerce offers for everyday business?• Is there anything negative considering e-commerce? If yes, please describe.
• Do you think e-commerce would shape existing roles of workforce? How?
• Do you consider tailoring the e-commerce according the customer base to be important?
• Can the e-commerce be used as a tool for marketing?
2. E-Commerce and Customer Behavior
• What is your opinion on customers adopting to the newly launched e-commerce?
• Do you think that existing customers start using e-commerce as their main ordering tool?
• How you see the e-commerce affecting the order quantities or is there any affect at all?
• What is your idea on Customer Behavior and does e-commerce have an impact on it?
45 Appendix 2. Interview questions for Sales reps
Job title:
Responsibilities:
Educational background:
1. E-Commerce
•
What do you think about e-commerce? If it is good or bad, please describe why?• Do you think that customers like to use e-commerce? Describe what led to your answer.
• Do you think that e-commerce could even attract new customers? If so, tell how?
• Do you see e-commerce as a helpful tool for customers? Describe what led to your answer.
• Does e-commerce influence your work tasks?
2. E-Commerce and Customer Behavior
• What is your idea of Customer Behavior and does e-commerce have an impact on it?
• If you feel that e-commerce is a helpful tool for customers, do you think that it influences the return rate of customers or even the ordering quantities?
• Do the additional functions for customers, e.g. possibility to see invoices or track product balances, have an influence on the customer behavior?
• What functions should e-commerce include to offer the best possible customer experience?
46 Appendix 3. Interview questions for B2B procurement handlers
Job title:
Responsibilities:
Educational background:
1. E-Commerce
•
How do you like ordering online?• Do you think you could handle all the procurements online?
• How do you value additional functions, e.g. rebuy tool, possibility to see invoices or track product balance through an online channel?
• Could these additional functions be the decisive factors to use e-commerce or not for ordering?
• What functions should e-commerce include to offer the best possible user experience?