Three essays on digital and non-digital transformations in business-to-business markets
Fundamental changes in business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior confront B2B supplier firms with unprecedented challenges. On the one hand, a rising share of industrial buyers demands digitalized offerings and processes from suppliers. Consequently, suppliers are urged to implement digital transformations by expanding the range of both digital offerings and processes. On the other hand, B2B buyers increasingly expect suppliers to provide individually tailored solutions to their idiosyncratic needs. Hence, suppliers are also required to implement non-digital transformations by providing offerings and processes that are customized to each customers’ specific requirements. The rise of these digital and non-digital transformations calls established knowledge into question. Thus, B2B marketing research and practice are urged to create a comprehensive understanding of digital and non-digital transformations by means of novel and empirically grounded insights and derive actionable response strategies. In respond, my dissertation addresses the overall research question of how B2B supplier firms can successfully implement both digital and non-digital transformations in three individual essays. In Essay 1, I offer a broader perspective on both digital and non-digital transformations by investigating digital service customization (i.e., the tailoring of digital B2B services to customers’ individual needs). Through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, I outline a comprehensive set of factors that favor the application of distinct digital service customization strategies. Essay 2 represents a deep dive into digital transformations of sales processes. By making use of two rich sets of qualitative interview material from supplier and buyer firms, I identify the challenges resulting for B2B salespeople from the introduction of digital sales channels into personal selling. Moreover, I uncover facilitating mechanisms that sales managers can employ to support salespeople in coping with digital sales channels. Finally, Essay 3 constitutes a deep dive into non-digital transformations. Based on qualitative interview material and survey data from matched sales manager–salesperson dyads, the essay explores how configurations of individual salespeople’s personal and procedural competencies facilitate success at selling customer solutions (i.e., highly customized, performance-oriented offerings comprising products and/or services). The essay shows that successfully selling customized offerings like solutions hinges on salespeople’s unique configurations of present and absent competencies. In a nutshell, these essays provide three major insights on how B2B suppliers can successfully implement digital and non-digital transformations. First, they underscore that a comprehensive understanding of the origins and spillover effects of transformations is a key prerequisite to successfully implementing them. Second, they unveil that digital and non-digital transformations impact on multiple organizational levels. Third, they point out important resources and capabilities that help suppliers to successfully implement transformations, be they digital or non-digital. With this dissertation, I make substantial contributions to the broader literature on digital and non-digital transformations in B2B contexts. At the same time, my dissertation provides hands-on implications for managers in B2B supplier firms that are facing fundamental transformations in the marketplace—both digital and non-digital in nature.
business-to-business; digitalization; customization; digital services; digital sales channels; customer solutions
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