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ENRICO BARALDI
VISITING PROFESSOR Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi"
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Insegnamento: Managing B2B relationships in industrial markets
International Management - Management internazionale (D.M.270/04) (Offerta formativa 2022)
Obiettivi formativi
“No business is an island” is a phrase that well captures the strategic situation of most companies, especially within B2B markets. Most of the choices and outcomes for one firm are
strongly dependent on the actions and reactions of other firms, be these suppliers, customers, distributors and competitors. In fact, other specific firms are so important that it becomes
necessary to understand their individual strategies in order to forge one’s own strategies. For instance, a couple of large industrial customers can have such an impact that the selling firm needs to analyze in detail their “organizational buying behavior”.
At the same time, the firm needs to address its own suppliers with a purchasing strategy that takes into account the specificities of each single supplier. Given the importance of some individual suppliers and customers, the development of close business relationships with them becomes pivotal for value creation, inside and outside a company. Value is indeed
created by managing these business relationships. But the complex issue is that these relationships cannot be managed separately from one another: all customer relationships, as
well as a company’s relationships to its own suppliers, sub-suppliers and distributors are connected to each other into a business network. This course puts therefore a strong emphasis
on how a firm can use the whole network that surrounds it by combining relationships and
external resources for value creation and other strategic purposes.
Students attending this course will learn both the theoretical models to make sense of business relationships and networks, as well as practical tools to manage customer and supplier relationships. Moreover, students will gain an understanding of how networks work as well as how strategies can be developed within these complex contexts.
Prerequisiti
Basic knowledge of marketing and business strategy.
Programma del corso
The course covers the following topics:
-Customer value creation in B2B markets
-Introduction to business relationships and networks
-The ARA model for analyzing relationships and networks
-Communication and IT in business relationships
-Managing customer relationships and portfolios
-Pricing in customer relationships
-Customer profitability analysis
-Organizational purchasing
-Managing supplier relationships and supply networks
-Business strategies and managing in networks
-Strategy paradoxes in business networks
Metodi didattici
The course comprises both lectures covering the assigned theoretical literature (see reading list below) and extensive examples illustrating the topics at hand. Interactive case discussions will be used to penetrate specific topics and stimulate the participants’ analytical abilities.
Participants are invited to actively take part and to discuss/present in the classroom also two assignments: (1) an analysis of a selected piece of literature and (2) a final report covering an existing company’s key relationships and relationship portfolio.
Testi di riferimento
Anderson, J. C., Håkansson, H. & Johanson, J., 1994, Dyadic Business Relationships Within a
Business Network Context, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, Issue 4, October 1994, pp. 1-15.
Anderson, J., Narus, J., & van Rossum, W., 2006, Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets,
Harvard Business Review, March 2006, pp. 90-99.
Baraldi, E., 2008, Strategy in Industrial Networks: Experiences from IKEA, California Management
Review, Summer 2008, Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 99-126.
Baraldi, E., & Strömsten, T., 2006, Embedding, Producing and Using Low Weight: Value Creation
and the Role of the Configuration of Resource Interfaces in the Networks around Holmen’s Newsprint
and IKEA’s Lack Table, IMP Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 39-70.
Baraldi, E., & Nadin, G., 2006, The challenges in digitalizing business relationshisp: the construction
of an IT infrastructure for a textile-related business network, Technovation, Vol. 26, Issue 10, pp.
1111-1126.
Baraldi, E., & Waluszewski, A., 2005, Information technology at IKEA: an “open sesame” solution
or just another type of facility?, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58, Issue 9, pp. 1251-1260.
Baraldi, E., Brennan, R., Harrison, D., Tunisini, A, & Zolkiewski, J., 2007, Strategic Thinking and
the IMP Approach: A Comparative Analysis, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 36, Issue 7, pp.
879-894.
Gadde, L-E., & Håkansson, H., 1993, Professional Purchasing, Routledge
Gadde, L-E., & Håkansson, H., 2001, Supply Network Strategies, Wiley: Chichester.
Ford, D., Gadde, L-E., Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I.,2003, Managing Business Relationships (2nd
edition), Wiley (only Chap. 2-4).
Håkansson, H., 1987, Technological Innovation through Interaction (Chapter 1), and Product
Development in Networks (Chapter 3), In: Håkansson, H. (ed.), 1987, Industrial Technological
Development – A Network Approach, Croom Helm: London, Sidney, Dover, New Hampshire. (only
Chap. 1 and 3).
Håkansson, H., 1997, Organization Networks, In: Sorge, A., & Warner, M., (eds.), 1997, The IEBM
Handbook of Organizational Behaviour, Thomson Business Press: London, pp. 232-239.
Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I., 1989, No Business is an Island: the Network Concept of Business
Strategy, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1989, pp. 187-200.
Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I., 1995, Developing Relationships in Business Networks, London:
Routledge (only Chap 1-2).
Håkansson, H., & Waluszewski, A., 2002, Path dependence: restricting or facilitating technical
development?, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 55, Issue 7, pp. 561-570.
Håkansson, H., Harrison, D., & Waluszewski, A, 2004, Rethinking Marketing. Developing a New
Understanding of Markets, John Wiley & Sons (only chap 1 and 13).
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Kraljic, P., 1983, Purchasing must become supply management, Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct.,
pp. 109-117.
Lind, J., & Strömsten, T., 2006, When do firms use different types of customer accounting?, Journal
of Business Research, Vol. 59, No. 10, pp. 1257-1266.
Webster, F. E., & Wind, Y., 1996, A General Model for Understanding Organizational Buying
Behavior, Marketing Management, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 52-57 (first publ. in Journal of Marketing, 1972).
Teaching cases:
-Baraldi, E., 2008, Strategy in Industrial Networks: Experiences from IKEA, California Management
Review.
-Kaplan, R. S., 1989, Kanthal (A), Harvard Business Review.
-Karr, M., 1988, The Case of the Pricing Predicament, Harvard Business Review.
-Strömsten, T., 2007, Selling and buying printing paper: The relationship between Axel Springer
Verlag and Holmen Paper, Stockholm School of Economics.
-van Weele, A. J., 2000, Case: Red Ribbon Spa. purchasing, University of Eindhoven.
Verifica dell'apprendimento
The examination includes (1) a written exam with open-ended questions (covering 60% of the final grade) and (2) the two aforementioned assignments – analysis of selected literature and final report – to be performed in groups (covering 40% of the final grade). The final grade is expressed in 30th, ranging from a minimum of 18/30 to a maximum of 30/30 cum laude.
For details on topics, schedule and assignments, see the pdf-file of the Introductory lecture.
The evaluation criteria applied to the written exam are:
-Correctedness in the understanding of key concepts, models and theories (25%)
-Ability to compare and combine key concepts and models (25%)
-Ability to see limitations in and critique key concepts and models (25%)
-Clarity of expression and ability to structure a logic flow (25%).
The evaluation criteria for the teamworks literature summary are:
-Understanding of the core theoretical issue in the assigned literature (25%)
-Clarity of oral presentation and written report (25%)
-Ability to summarize relevant elements (25%)
-Ability to connect the assigned literature to the rest of the course and to other adjacent topics (25%).
The evaluation criteria for the teamworks final report are:
-Relevance of the managerial problem and quality of the case materials (25%)
-Ability to apply theoretical concepts and tools to a concrete situation (25%)
-Clarity of oral presentation and written report (25%)
-Ability to define relevant concrete solutions (25%).
Risultati attesi
Learning outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to
1- Develop an interactive view of value creation, stretching from suppliers to final customers
2- Grasp the complexity and key mechanisms of business relationships and business networks
3- Analyze customer and supplier relationships and their role in a firm’s value creation strategy
4- Assess and improve the qualitative and quantitative features of key relationships
5- Analyze the complex purchase behavior and strategies of industrial buyers
6- Identify adequate measures to interact with industrial buyers and provide value to them,
while developing profitable relationships for both parties
7- Design organizational structures that enable the creation of successful customer interfaces, value creation and value capture
8- Understand the various interdependencies, including technical ones, that connect buyers and sellers across industrial networks
9- Comprehend the importance of business relationships and industrial networks in forming a company’s strategy
10- Identify the key external actors and business relationships to be affected, developed or mobilized to achieve a company’s strategic objectives.