Abstract
Committed Business-to-Business (B2B) relationships are linked to sustainable business partnerships and greater profitability. As competition increases, suppliers must seek to differentiate by shifting the focus of their offerings from the product to services that contribute to create additional value to buyers. This empirical research proposes a product-service system (PSS) framework within the context of a relationship marketing (RM) model tested across a sample of United States (US) and Brazilian buyers. The study examines the impact of value-added benefits on building sustainable B2B partnerships. Results demonstrate that a firm’s servitization strategy that delivers both functional and social benefits fosters greater information exchange and mutual cooperation, which in turn contributes to increase buyer’s trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to a supplier. Despite some noted differences found in the commitment-building process, results show the importance that additional services have on promoting long-term, sustainable B2B partnerships across countries in distinct stages of economic development.
Highlights
As competition in B2B settings and customer expectations continue to increase, firms are seeking ways to differentiate by providing additional value to buyers that goes beyond the product offerings
Despite some noted differences found in the commitment-building process, results show the importance that additional services have on promoting long-term, sustainable B2B partnerships across countries in distinct stages of economic development
There is growing consensus among scholars and practitioners alike regarding the importance of adopting product service-systems (PSS) strategies to differentiate and gain a competitive advantage “in an increasingly globalized market” [7]
Summary
As competition in B2B settings and customer expectations continue to increase, firms are seeking ways to differentiate by providing additional value to buyers that goes beyond the product offerings. There is greater emphasis being placed on servitization, the process of adding services to a company’s main offerings. These additional services are unique value-added activities that are more difficult to replicate and become sources of competitive advantage for the firm [1,2]. PSS is regarded as a “special case of servitization” [3] with a focus on value-added services that allows firms to transition from solely providers of products to providers of solutions [4]. These additional services, or value-added activities, allow companies to compete with more unique bundles that deliver differentiated solutions to customers
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