Identifying Customer Value in Building Plant Solution Proposals in Minerals Processing
Saloniemi, Hannu (2015)
Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
2015
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201505259942
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201505259942
Tiivistelmä
This Master’s Thesis addresses a real-life case company challenge. This study was conducted for identifying customer value in building plant solution proposals in the unit of this study. The unit of this study is working in the minerals processing industry and has a long tradition in equipment manufacturing business, though lately the company has changed its focus towards the plant solution business. Although the plant solution business has provided an opportunity to grow the revenue and margin, the case company is experiencing problems in building attractive and competitive plant solutions.
The study was conducted as an action research study started by indentifying the business challenge. The current state analysis was conducted to analyze the case company, its operations and the current process of building the plant solution proposal. Data for the current state analysis was collected from the case company internal documents and openend interviews conducted with the key stakeholders. The current state indicated that the case company lacks the tools to identify customer value in customer proposal building. Therefore the study proposes some conceptual tools that would help the solution sales teams to gather and analyze the customer value drivers in plant solution building. The proposal for the conceptual tools was created by comparing the findings from the current state analysis in the case company to the best practice found from the business and research literature, and a wide discussion which involved the key stakeholders from the case company.
The identification of the customer value and the creation of the customer value proposition are challenging areas that are mutually dependent and influence each other. Therefore, a structured way of identifying and gathering the drivers of the customer value was proposed. The outcome of this study is a structured process to analyze customer value in the plant solution building. The other result of this study was a questionnaire template for the sales teams to help them in identifying and gathering the customer value data which can be used in customer proposal building.
This study was validated internally and considered as a significant starting point for the development of the customer focus in the plant solution building of the minerals processing unit in the case company.
The study was conducted as an action research study started by indentifying the business challenge. The current state analysis was conducted to analyze the case company, its operations and the current process of building the plant solution proposal. Data for the current state analysis was collected from the case company internal documents and openend interviews conducted with the key stakeholders. The current state indicated that the case company lacks the tools to identify customer value in customer proposal building. Therefore the study proposes some conceptual tools that would help the solution sales teams to gather and analyze the customer value drivers in plant solution building. The proposal for the conceptual tools was created by comparing the findings from the current state analysis in the case company to the best practice found from the business and research literature, and a wide discussion which involved the key stakeholders from the case company.
The identification of the customer value and the creation of the customer value proposition are challenging areas that are mutually dependent and influence each other. Therefore, a structured way of identifying and gathering the drivers of the customer value was proposed. The outcome of this study is a structured process to analyze customer value in the plant solution building. The other result of this study was a questionnaire template for the sales teams to help them in identifying and gathering the customer value data which can be used in customer proposal building.
This study was validated internally and considered as a significant starting point for the development of the customer focus in the plant solution building of the minerals processing unit in the case company.