Buyer-seller relationships on the Internet: a business-to-business perspective

Abstract: The Internet has gone from publishing online brochures to actually
presenting the virtual image of the company. Today almost every company has
their own Internet website and thereby has a new possibility to reach their
customers. The purpose of this thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of
how websites are used in developing and maintaining customer relationships.
To reach this purpose the study took place at the leading energy company in
Sweden, Vattenfall. The researcher had the possibility to spend two months
at Vattenfall in Råcksta, Sweden and three months at the subsidiary Bewag in
Berlin, Germany. Multiple case studies were conducted where one case
described the buyer-seller relationship over the Internet in Sweden and the
other case described the buyer-seller relationship over the Internet in
Germany. To collect the data interviews, observations and documentation was
used. Due to the company’s confidentiality policies the empirical data,
analysis, and findings cannot be published.