Companies have started to concentrate more on customer relationship, meaning more attention on customer contact, instead of concentrating on the product. Those thoughts have further developed into that companies continuously create and add value for their customers, to keep them loyal and satisfied. Value can be created in different ways, and the companies need to understand the value factors that are considered most important among their customers. For the same reason IKEA commissioned this thesis; to know how to deliver greater customer value. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and rank the factors that perceive customer value for IKEA’s business customers in the kitchen market. With a quantitative approach in mind a market research is accomplished to find opportunities and solve problems of the existing strategy. Data was collected with help from a survey, in accordance with the method chapter. Further was the survey analyzed and interpreted with help from the theory in the frame of reference. The conclusions are presented in the end of the thesis. The theories within the subject of customer value show that price, performance and personalization are the main factors that contribute to perceived customer value. Good customer value can be achieved when price, performance and personalization are in harmony and exceeds customer expectations. When companies only present parts of the triad, maximization of perceived customer value cannot be reached. The empirical data, received through market research and personal communication with A. Larsson at IKEA, was analyzed with assistance of the theories. Through market research the factors that perceive customer value are identified, evaluated and ranked. The findings have made it possible to test if the model of price, performance and personalization is ac-curate in accordance to the reality. The findings show, in ranked order, that price, quality and distribution activities are the main variables creating customer value in the business-to-business relationship in the kitchen market. The authors found that price and performance are the main drivers behind perceived customer value. Personalization is also considered contributing to customer value, but works more as a motivation factor that is strengthening the business relationship. This guides us to the question; what’s in it for you? It is of high importance to understand that customers and groups of customers perceive value in different ways. This leads to that IKEA needs to consider what factors that are in there for you, as a business customer, and how those variables can be improved for a better business relationship.

<p>Companies have started to concentrate more on customer relationship, meaning more attention on customer contact, instead of concentrating on the product. Those thoughts have further developed into that companies continuously create and add value for their customers, to keep them loyal and satisfied. Value can be created in different ways, and the companies need to understand the value factors that are considered most important among their customers. For the same reason IKEA commissioned this thesis; to know how to deliver greater customer value. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and rank the factors that perceive customer value for IKEA’s business customers in the kitchen market.</p><p>With a quantitative approach in mind a market research is accomplished to find opportunities and solve problems of the existing strategy. Data was collected with help from a survey, in accordance with the method chapter. Further was the survey analyzed and interpreted with help from the theory in the frame of reference. The conclusions are presented in the end of the thesis.</p><p>The theories within the subject of customer value show that price, performance and personalization are the main factors that contribute to perceived customer value. Good customer value can be achieved when price, performance and personalization are in harmony and exceeds customer expectations. When companies only present parts of the triad, maximization of perceived customer value cannot be reached.</p><p>The empirical data, received through market research and personal communication with A. Larsson at IKEA, was analyzed with assistance of the theories. Through market research the factors that perceive customer value are identified, evaluated and ranked. The findings have made it possible to test if the model of price, performance and personalization is ac-curate in accordance to the reality.</p><p>The findings show, in ranked order, that price, quality and distribution activities are the main variables creating customer value in the business-to-business relationship in the kitchen market. The authors found that price and performance are the main drivers behind perceived customer value. Personalization is also considered contributing to customer value, but works more as a motivation factor that is strengthening the business relationship.</p><p>This guides us to the question; what’s in it for you? It is of high importance to understand that customers and groups of customers perceive value in different ways. This leads to that IKEA needs to consider what factors that are in there for you, as a business customer, and how those variables can be improved for a better business relationship.</p>

Contracts play a key role in many business to business relationships. Service organisations are no exception. Despite a growing interest of services and how services are managed, research on how to use contracts to manage services has been surprisingly sparse in service research. The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of using contracts to manage services in business-to-business relationships. Contract theories together with concepts from service research are used to enrich and understand how contracts are used to manage services and thus make contributions to service research. The thesis will give an empirically grounded understanding of managing services through contracts. The thesis consists of six separate papers, all based on data gathered from contractual relationships between contractors and service providers. The results are based on studies of authentic contracts which are not the case in most previous studies. The methods used for gathering and analysing data involve case studies, content analysis of authentic contracts, interviews and document studies of the public transport sector in Sweden which is an empirically rich area for studying contracts. The three main contributions of this dissertation are; firstly, an extended understanding of how contracts are used to manage the prerequisites for service quality for the parties involved. It was found that the concept service quality is brought forward on three interdependent managerial levels; from a detailed operational level, to a systemic oriented strategic level, and also a visionary rhetorical level each specifying the prerequisite for the services. To manage the prerequisites, the contracts rely on three identified means; laws and regulations, standards and measurements and economical incentives. Secondly, the detailed contents and rigidity of the contracts bring forward an inflexible and asymmetric relationship, where the parties are restricted in their activities. Here the contracts become a substitute for trust and commitment instead of supporting the development of trust and commitment. Finally, the thesis deepen the understanding of the role of contracts in governing services, from being a static abbreviator to a dyadic market based relationship, to becoming a dynamic tool for developing and sustaining a value creating and value driven collaborative network.

In the pre-relationship exploration stage of a business-to-business (B2B) relationship, firms find it difficult to evaluate other parties because of the prevalence of information asymmetry. Firms must make informed decisions, otherwise, they end up in a contentious long-term relationship, which adversely affects the performance of both sides. While majority research on B2B relationships is focused in the post-relationship phase, very little has been done to identify strategies that firms can adopt to signal their firm characteristics in the pre-relationship phase. This is important, as such signals can help firms make informed purchase decisions by cutting through the information asymmetry. Also, sending the right signals can help firms extract a price premium from their prospective partners, contributing positively to their bottom line. Therefore, this dissertation consists of three essays with the objective to (i) identify positioning strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (ii) identify branding strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (iii) investigate signals that affect firm performance.

The content of customer-perceived value has in this study been explored with the aim of providing an understanding of the concept. The evolving service-centered logic for marketing puts an emphasis on value, especially the value perceived and determined by the customer. Concurrently, a development is recognized within the industrial business-to-business sector where goods and services are packaged into total service offerings – with an increasing prominence for services. This is the background of the study. The study itself was conducted in order to elucidate the concept of customer-perceived value in a context where total service offerings are provided within dyadic business-to-business relationships. The conceptual framework, guiding the empirical study, has its points of departure in the field of service research. A case study conducted in the commercial aircraft engine maintenance industry has provided a description – depicted in value maps – of context-specific attributes forming the dimensions of customer-perceived value. It is suggested that customer-perceived value is created at three levels; at a product level, at a partnership level, and at a psychological level. Furthermore, the value maps clarify the double nature of customer-perceived value, which is found to have both an origin side – how the service provider should act to deliver value – and a side illuminating the more or less monetarily quantifiable effects of value. The origin and effect of customer-perceived value are proposed to be explained by a model where the notion of “flow” is central. Flows of goods, information, risk, involvement, and money intersect the value features and provide the sources of value on the origin side of customer-perceived value. The effects can be traced to the flows of revenue benefits, cost benefits, interest effects, and costs to use. Concurrently, flows both build, and are filtrated by, “trust” during the process in which the customer’s perception of value comes into being. On the effect-side of value, the concepts stochasticity and substantiality are introduced in order to capture the uncertainties that make translations into monetary terms difficult. The outcome of the abductive reasoning in the final phase of the investigation is a conceptual model – proposed as the main contribution of the study – summarizing aspects of customer-perceived value. My definition of customer-perceived value, together with a list clarifying the many facets of the concept, concludes the study.

Purpose:The purpose of this master dissertation is to examine current research on trust and its building process in business to business relationship from marketing and behavioral sciences perspectives. Research Questions: (1) What relationships do inter-organizational trust and inter-personal trust have? (2) How trust is built from perspectives of business and behavioral sciences? (3) What benefits and limitations do trust researches in behavioral sciences have, comparing to trust research in marketing? Research Design/Methodology: Qualitative research conducted a literature review between business administration and behavioral sciences, and interdisciplinary interviews with nine scholars and four business managers. Meanwhile, criteria are generated to ensure research quality. Findings: The finding of this research claims that interpersonal and interorganizational trusts are linked with organizational learning theory. Trust-building process is a social cognition sequence, which developed based on theory of social cognition and social interaction. A conceptual framework of trust-building process on the basis of social cognition was developed. Managerial Implications: This research suggests that mangers need to improve companies’ learning and cognition capability in order to identify new business opportunities, reduce the risk on mistakenly trust ineptitude partners, and increase companies’ competitive advantages.