Relationer og værdiskabelser – i vidensintensive virksomheder!

Abstract

Interaction on business-to-business markets (B2B) is central to ensuring value-creating processes. Literature points to three value-creating key processes: 1) innovation, 2) customer creation, and 3) operational processes. These processes are thus necessary to build strong customer relationships. The article focuses particularly on the role of the individual in the creation of value, including how actors in knowledge-intensive firms create value in business relationships, and how value creation is influenced by the central elements of the relationship, specifically focusing on people, processes and procedures in the various forms of B2B relations. It is recognised that some of them contribute more to the value creation than others, due to the natural characteristics of the processes involved. The more value can be observed in a business relationship, the stronger and more profitable it becomes. And as strong customer relationships are perceived as the central forces for achieving competitive advantages in a knowledge economy, the inevitable conclusion is that this relational dimension is indeed important. A number of short cases illustrate how those phenomena can be studied. It is argued that as these illustrations of practice provide a picture of which types of value and knowledge are decisive for cooperation, they become the driving force behind the value creation process that takes place.