Authors: Anne Jalkala; RistoT. Salminen
This paper focuses on examining how industrial suppliers build, manage and utilize their reference customer relationship portfolios. The paper views customer relationships from the resource-based perspective and offers insights into how a firm’s customer relationships can be leveraged as assets to build growth and competitive advantage through reference utilization.We suggest that for an industrial supplier operating in business markets, an important marketing capability is to systematically build, manage and utilize the firm’s reference customer relationship portfolio. Several routines and tools for building, managing and utilizing reference customer relationship portfolios are identified through an explorative multiple case study in three industrial companies. Based on the empirical findings, we propose a framework model of a reference-oriented marketing approach, which can be used as a tool for developing a supplier’s reference utilization capability. The framework model provides a contribution for a more profound understanding of the ways in which firm’s customer relationships can be utilized as strategic assets.
Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)
Web Address: n.a.
Publish Year: 2008
Conference: Uppsala, Sweden (2008)