TY - JOUR
T1 - Putting the “service” into B2B marketing
T2 - key developments in service research and their relevance for B2B
AU - Wirtz, Jochen
AU - Kowalkowski, Christian
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the guidance and feedback provided by Jose Ruiz-Alba Robledo, guest editor of this special issues and the expert interviewees for this article. They are (in alphabetical order): Sergio Biggemann (University of Otago); Ad de Jong (Copenhagen Business School); Arne De Keyser (EDHEC Business School); Anthony Di Benedetto (Temple University); Michael Ehret (University of Graz); Maria Holmlund (Hanken School of Economics); Elina Jaakkola (University of Turku); Joona Keränen (RMIT University); Daniel Kindström (Linköping University); Chiara Orsingher (University of Bologna); Annika Ravald (Hanken School of Economics); Anna Salonen (University of Jyväskylä); James Spohrer (International Society of Service Innovation Professionals); Pauliina Ulkuniemi (University of Oulu); Giampaolo Viglia (University of Portsmouth); and Judy Zolkiewski (Alliance Manchester Business School).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2023/1/20
Y1 - 2023/1/20
N2 - Purpose: The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond a vibrant stream of literature on servitization, the B2B literature has neglected drawing on the wider service literature. This paper aims to examine recent streams of service research that have promising implications and research opportunities for B2B marketing. Design/methodology/approach: Together, the author team has decades of research, managerial and executive teaching experience related to B2B marketing and services marketing and management. The observations and reflections in this paper originate from this unique perspective and are supplemented by insights from 16 expert interviews. Findings: The authors identify and discuss in this paper four broad and related themes from the service literature that can stimulate B2B research and practice. First, the authors highlight the implications for capturing value in economies with their rapidly increasing specialization and related growth in B2B services. Specifically, the authors explain where B2B firms should focus on to gain bargaining power in the value chains of the future. Second, an additional strategy to enhance a B2B firm’s power to capture value is servitization, which allows firms to get closer to their customers, increase their switching costs and build strategic partnerships. The authors explore how firms can use service productization to enhance their chances of successful servitization. Third, servitization is expensive, and productivity and scalability are often a challenge in B2B contexts. These issues are tackled in a recent service research stream on cost-effective service excellence (CESE) where the authors derive implications for B2B firms. Fourth and related to CESE, latest developments in intelligent automation offer exciting opportunities for B2B services to be made more scalable. Originality/value: This paper is based on the unique perspective of the author team and a panel of experts and connects major streams of service research to the B2B literature.
AB - Purpose: The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond a vibrant stream of literature on servitization, the B2B literature has neglected drawing on the wider service literature. This paper aims to examine recent streams of service research that have promising implications and research opportunities for B2B marketing. Design/methodology/approach: Together, the author team has decades of research, managerial and executive teaching experience related to B2B marketing and services marketing and management. The observations and reflections in this paper originate from this unique perspective and are supplemented by insights from 16 expert interviews. Findings: The authors identify and discuss in this paper four broad and related themes from the service literature that can stimulate B2B research and practice. First, the authors highlight the implications for capturing value in economies with their rapidly increasing specialization and related growth in B2B services. Specifically, the authors explain where B2B firms should focus on to gain bargaining power in the value chains of the future. Second, an additional strategy to enhance a B2B firm’s power to capture value is servitization, which allows firms to get closer to their customers, increase their switching costs and build strategic partnerships. The authors explore how firms can use service productization to enhance their chances of successful servitization. Third, servitization is expensive, and productivity and scalability are often a challenge in B2B contexts. These issues are tackled in a recent service research stream on cost-effective service excellence (CESE) where the authors derive implications for B2B firms. Fourth and related to CESE, latest developments in intelligent automation offer exciting opportunities for B2B services to be made more scalable. Originality/value: This paper is based on the unique perspective of the author team and a panel of experts and connects major streams of service research to the B2B literature.
KW - 512 Business and Management
KW - Artificial intelligence
KW - Cost-effective service excellence
KW - Digitization
KW - Intelligent automation
KW - Productization
KW - Service robots
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133770524&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/JBIM-02-2022-0085
DO - 10.1108/JBIM-02-2022-0085
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133770524
SN - 0885-8624
VL - 38
SP - 272
EP - 289
JO - Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing
JF - Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing
IS - 2
ER -