Possibilities of data-driven customer insight in B2B service development
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Author
Date
2023
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Management and International Business (MIB)
Language
en
Pages
79
Series
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to examine the possibilities of data-driven customer insight generation and leverage in business-to-business (B2B) service development. Previous research on data utilization in service development is scarce, and so, this study aimed to contribute to the building of theories on data and analytics leveraging. More specifically, the study concentrated on inspecting the direct and indirect benefits of data-driven customer insight for B2B service development as well as the related data management challenges and capabilities. The study’s theoretical framework was built on the interdisciplinary fields of service research, marketing, and management. To gain an extensive understanding of the phenomenon, the research followed a qualitative, multiple-case research design. The empirical research data was collected via case interviews in January 2023. Altogether, 17 experts working in eight different technology companies were interviewed for the study. The analysis of interview data was based on case and thematic analysis. The findings of the study showed that data-driven customer insight has versatile direct and indirect benefits for B2B service development: continuous insight generation, more comprehensive customer understanding, ideation and validation, behavioral customer segmentation and comparisons, data-based decision-making, more efficient customer integration projects, deeper customer relationships, and strengthened organizational memory. At the same time, to be successful in data-driven insight generation, the organization needs to have certain data and analytics capabilities related to standardized data management processes, expertise on data and business, decentralized decision-making, and collaboration between different experts and teams. Additionally, data and analytics seem to improve the organization’s customer insight generation as a dynamic capability. As a result of the analysis and discussion, the study proposes a theoretical model on how data-driven customer insight can be generated and leveraged for B2B service development. The model considers different sources of customer-related data, data analysis, benefits of data-driven insights, data management challenges, and capabilities. Lastly, the research presents managerial implications: the implications cover, for example, the steering role of the service business strategy in customer insight generation. Future research should continue to further examine the topic in different industries, especially among data usage pioneers, utilizing a variety of case study data collection methods.Description
Thesis advisor
Schildt, HenriKeywords
service development, data-driven customer insight, data management, data and analytics capabilities, dynamic capabilities
