Topic outline

  • The second theme of the course investigates customer value creation by service. To find new sources of profitability and competitiveness, most firms expand into services.

    However, value creation by service is in many ways different than, for instance, the traditional product-based value creation. Selling novel services requires explicit demonstration of the business value that the service creates for the customer.

    To implement the service, suppliers and customers work concurrently to reach a shared goal by implementing a shared business process. Hence, service-based value creation require high level of coordination, cooperation, information sharing, joint learning, and organising that makes all this possible.

    The topics of the module are to understand 1) how goals drive value creation, 2) how value creating relationships are initiated by value propositions, 3) how value propositions are built by customer value research, and 4) how the supplier and customer activity systems are integrated by a service.

    The learning goal of this module is to understand how individual and organisational goals drive actions, how service suppliers seek to communicate how they expect to be able to help the customer to reach their goals by jointly implementing supplier's value proposition, and how value propositions are designed "outside-in" by analysing customer's business process.

    WEDNESDAY 3.2: Customer goals and service value propositions

    Preparation for the session includes watching a video on customer goals and decision process. This video asks "why and how customers buy" and explains how goals are driving change.

    Pre-reading & presentation article is
    "Conceptualizing and communicating value in business markets". You can assign yourself into the presentation team here. This article explains the concept of customer value.

    After reading the article and watching the article presentation and reading the slides (available on Tuesday 2.2. 10 am), do a peer-review of the presentation (for those NOT participating in the presentation team).

    The day's presentation slides are here. After the day's session, please t
    ake the quiz that builds on the video and the lecture

    For further information, you may want to read:

    WEDNESDAY 10.2: Customer value research and value creation by service

    Pre-reading and presentation article is "The customer-centered innovation map". This article describes a method to explore and identify opportunities to improve customer's business process. You can assign yourself into the presentation team here.

    After reading the article and watching the article presentation and reading the slides (available on Tuesday 9.2. 10 am), do a peer-review of the presentation (for those NOT participating in the presentation team).

    For further information, you may want to read about activity systems as the basis of a service implementation. 

    The main topic of the day is a case presentation on value creation by industrial services (Tomas Myntti / Konecranes). Link to the presentation material. After the day's presentation, take the quiz that builds on the lecture.

    Then, write a 
    Learning diary on value creation by service
    : Write a short reflective online learning diary on "Value creation by service" by 1) summarizing and explaining the key learnings of the module, and 2) critically reflecting your own learning on the key topics.