Internal elements that hinder a better industrial service offering

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to investigate the internal elements that influence service offering. A better understanding of these elements can improve interaction between organizational structure, corporate culture and human resource management, and can leverage interdepartmental collaboration. Design/methodology/approach In total, 12 global manufacturers that sell products and services to the automotive or to the chemical supply chains were investigated on multiple case studies. Findings The lack of interdepartmental processes and indicators may induce other departments to not prioritize the demands of the service department, thus lowering the service level. Service professionals who do not combine technical and commercial skills may hinder sales increase (product + service). The isolation of service professionals prevents the dissemination of knowledge among departments, thus reducing manufacturer’s innovativeness. Research limitations/implications Further research must focus on how to manage/redesign processes to improve sales and innovativeness; how to hire, qualify and motivate service professionals who possess commercial skills; and how to mitigate the isolation of service professionals. Originality/value New interdepartmental processes and indicators can turn on new and better organizational structures, improve the service management and reduce internal conflicts. Service professionals who possess and use only technical skills can hamper the incorporation of the new demands presented by the customers. Isolated professionals may negatively affect the efficacy of the market strategy.

Top managers’ role in key account management

“…To check the intra-organizational alignment on the internal processes and procedures, on the internal cooperation, and on new ways of doing business. Blocker et al, 2011;Bradford et al, 2012;Guesalaga and Johnston, 2010;Ivens et al, 2018;Marcos-Cuevas et al, 2014;Pereira et al, 2018;Piercy, 2009;Philippe Gosselin and André Bauwen, 2006;Richards and Jones, 2009;Salojärvi et al, 2013;Vanharanta et al, 2014;and Workman et al, 2003. To mitigate the trade-offs that arise from the conflict between short/long-term deliverables.…”

“…Improvement of organizational structure may also require an analysis of intra-organizational alignment (Guesalaga and Johnston, 2010; Marcos-Cuevas et al , 2014). This analysis embraces the partnerships already established by internal departments (Ivens et al , 2018; Piercy, 2009), as well as internal processes and procedures (Marcos-Cuevas et al , 2014; Pereira et al , 2018; Vanharanta et al , 2014). Beyond that a supplier may be interested in checking marketing and sales resources in relation to KA effectiveness (Workman et al , 2003) or considering whether the KAM perspective is fluid and flexible (Bradford et al , 2012).…”

Moving from a goods- to a service-oriented organization: a perspective on the role of corporate culture and human resource management

“…There is not much research on how corporate culture is deployed in organizations with a service logic (Grönroos and Halle, 2010). Some authors have investigated what are the internal elements required for a successful service strategy (Ambroise et al, 2018;Homburg et al, 2003;Pereira et al, 2018) while others have analyzed the impact of different components of service-culture into the firm's performance (Gebauer et al, 2010a(Gebauer et al, , 2010b. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the need for a better understanding of the role of the service orientation of corporate culture and HRM for successfully introducing a service logic when implementing a customization strategy.…”

“…Against this background and with the aim of filling this gap, our research focuses on exploring how two internal factors, service-orientation of corporate culture and service orientation of HRM, are perceived by managers, employees and retailers when moving from goods-to a service-oriented company (Fliess and Lexutt, 2019;Pereira et al, 2018;Dang et al, 2019;Jovanovic et al, 2019) through a customization strategy (Sousa and Da Silveira, 2019) in the case of a bike manufacturer. The study answers the following research questions: RQ1.…”

“…The analysis of the industrial service research suggests that the successful implementation of a service-oriented strategy requires significant internal and external changes (Homburg et al , 2003; Pereira et al , 2018). Among the factors that should be changed in companies to deliver customized products and more services, on one hand, there are hard factors such as the organizational structure (Kowalkowski, 2011; Neu and Brown, 2005; Pereira et al , 2018; Sheth and Sharma, 2008), the organizational distinctiveness (Oliveira et al , 2018), distinct business unit (Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003) or resources shared by the product and service business unit (Neu and Brown, 2005). Another hard factor is the proximity of the service to customers that is, the extent to which external customers are aware of a service organization and can easily identify the service contact points (Froehle and Roth, 2004).…”