T HEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

9.1 Theoretical contributions

Due to the lack of a universal implementation framework for online after-sales services and spare parts, this thesis provides cardinal theoretical implications. The thesis dealt with the research gap by employing three prominent disciplines. Firstly, important after-sales service and spare part management elements were described. Secondly, product information management was considered as a crucial facet for a successful migration to the online channels and its challenges were illuminated from different perspectives. Finally, e-business,

e-commerce and e-service elements were examined and several e-service quality dimensions were established for the online after-sales service implementations. The discussion on these three core disciplines has been based on extensive review of academic literature, journals and publications.

The elaborations of this thesis can be employed for further theoretical development and contribution in the field of marketing, supply chain management and collaboration, and operational management. Further, the thesis might also be of some limited interest to information processing and information technology theories.

The implementation framework suggests the preeminent aspect is to decide on the aim, priorities and audience of the implementation project. In this setting, the empirical results confirmed there are significant differences between various customer groups, in particularly between B2B and B2C customers (Legner 2008; Vargo & Lush 2008; Oliveira & Roth 2012;

Chang et al. 2012). For B2B customers, fast and efficient ordering process with the correct and up-to-date information such as price and availability is predominant. When customers are goal-oriented in purchasing online then the entertainment related aspects are irrelevant in the purchasing context (Zeithaml et al. 2002). Customized pricing is one of the rampant benefits for online channels and is part and parcel of B2B business relations. For the B2C segment, attractiveness of the website, discounts, promotions and comprehensive product descriptions are vital. Consumer-related research on website quality and online customer experience often incorporates the aspects of fill and atmospheric elements such as colors, graphics, music, layout and design of the website or digital interface (Stein & Ramaseshan 2016). However, this type of analysis was beyond the scope of this research and has not been taken into account.

Furthermore, it can be of advantage to specify the value that is to be created by the e-solution.

Value can be created for the internal and the external parties. Customer involvement, customer integration and customer orientation (Auramo & Ala-Risku 2005; Sheth & Sharma 2007;

Oliveira & Roth 2012; Shamma & Hassan 2013; Chavez et al. 2015) are predominant elements for the adoption of e-business applications. By detecting customer needs and wants, proper solution can be build and advanced customer experience can be delivered. By meeting customers´ expectations, value is generated and customer will be paying for the value (Hofacker et al. 2007; Shamma & Hassan 2013). The case company examples validated the

meaningfulness of customer need analysis. According to the Vargo and Lusch (2008), the new marketing paradigm - the transition from good-dominance to service-dominant logic - indicate that customer is a resource instead of a target. This indicates that customer should be actively be integrated into the value creation. The results of this research validate this by revealing the significance of customer participation in the implementation of an e-business solution.

Especially, in the B2B environment this new approach to involve customers and entertain close relationships is significant (Ibid).

The theory suggests e-business can unleash structural changes in the network design (Cagliano et al. 2003; Oliveira & Roth 2012) and also trigger organizational restructuring (Oliveira & Roth 2012) and new business model development. The empirical findings validate the new internet technologies ensue new customer touch points and service channels and thereby, they compound the complexity and intricacy of supply chain structures (Saccani et al.

2007). The transition to online channels brings about new ways of operations. Technology and digital applications speed up processes due to automation, faster communication and customer self-service. This has considerable impact on internal stakeholders, especially when the e-business implementation is of disruptive nature. However, this type of sweeping changes has not been confirmed by the empirical results. The benchmark examples suggest merely some marginal changes in their organizational and network composition. Solely, some new partners were gained for the e-commerce adoption, few new processes and channels were added.

Nevertheless, this divergence between theory and empirical findings can be explained by the fact that the impact on the business structures hinges upon the scale and scope of the digital implementation. The AgriCom case showed a simple extension of its business. TextCom e-commerce adoption was aimed at supporting the current processes by adding a new channel.

Neither of the cases present a substitution or radical disruption of conventional processes (McKinsey & Company 2016). Furthermore, despite the introduction of new online channels, some pivotal processes in the physical channels remain indispensable. In the case of TextCom, that was the field sales force. In Company K this can be the manual approval and release of spare part orders. Nevertheless, changes may appear for employees in their daily routines. In TextCom´s example, field salesmen needed to feed their discussions with the customers into the CRM system, and also were required to keep track of customer-related information attained from the e-commerce platform.

The supply chain partner´s readiness for e-commerce as a requirement as advocated by Ghobakhloo et al. (2014) was not validated. In fact, companies seem to prefer the implementation of e-commerce without integrating their suppliers in order to mitigate complexity.

Product information management was found to be a crucial fundament for the success of e-commerce. Content management rests upon efficient product information management.

Content appeared to be highly important in online channels and has been confirmed by the customer survey results as well as by the benchmarking analysis. Notably, in the after-sales service, content richness and information quality were overriding success factors.

In order to manage the e-business applications and product data, information processing capabilities need to be developed and internal integrations of activities and information systems are vital (Galbraith 1974; Brax 2005; Trentin et al. 2012; Williams et al. 2013). In this regard, companies are increasingly upgrading their digital appearance and are moving away from their old legacy systems. This indicates new information systems structures. In fact, e-commerce is built on various information systems. An integrated and intelligent IT-infrastructure is a prerequisite for the online channels (McKinsey & Company 2016). This has been confirmed by the discussion with the benchmark companies, some systems were in place and others were acquired and integrated within the e-commerce solution. Zhu (2004) stated the integration of front-end commerce capabilities and back-end IT-infrastructure will yield positive e-commerce value from the investment. Moreover, in reference to the acquisition of new skills and capabilities (Bartezzaghi et al. 2016), empirical results indicate that generally some level of new skills was obtained for instance through training for the software solution or hiring additional people for managing the e-commerce adoption. However, the more significant share of competencies was acquired externally through software suppliers and partners.

In terms of e-service quality dimensions, it was found that not all three dimensions are equally significant for the online after-sales services. Concerning information and content richness in the online after-sales service, it is unambiguous that the information quality dimension is prevailing over the other two e-service quality dimensions. Complete, correct and up-dated information is of paramount importance. The information should also be easy to understand and be relevant. The system quality dimension fosters the acquisition of information and

stimulates self-service. In this regard, all three case examples endorsed the searching function should be easy to use and support different search criteria. This is in line with academic results, namely, the information content in B2B operations is highly important and should be facilitated by advanced search (Chen et al. 2013). In addition, easy navigation contributes to usability and enhanced system quality.

For ordering spare parts the system quality dimension is predominant since it is concerned with functionality and usability. However, the information quality dimension acts as a support for a smooth ordering process. The ability to find information with little effort and the herewith related navigation and search functions, can be seen as a leitmotif that is present throughout the interview responses.

The service quality dimension was not found to be relevant. This can be explained by the fact that a well-designed online after-sales platform negates the need for customers to contact customer support for problem solving. If the information quality and system quality dimensions meet the needs and expectations of customers and thereby, provide outstanding online services than there should not arise any difficulties for obtaining required information and for ordering spare parts. This was obvious in the poor evaluation of the online chat option with the customer service.