Customer Value Driven Continuous Improvements in Sales and Services

Abstract: Title: Customer Value Driven Continuous Improvements in Sales and Service - Introducing the Customer Value Assessment Method (CVAM) Authors: Magnus Flodberg and Joakim Olsson Supervisors: Fredrik Häglund, Institute of Economic Research, Department of Business Administration, School of Economics and Management, Lund University Bertil I. Nilsson, Industrial Management and Logistics, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University Problematization: Carlson Wholesale System (CWS) is a system for working with continuous improvements in sales and service processes, developed with inspiration from the Toyota Production System and Carlson’s own Carlson Manufacturing System (CMS). CWS has the core objective of adding customer value by increasing efficiency to better meet customer needs. Carlson in Argentina began to implement CWS during 2010 but have had difficulties in clarifying for managers and employees the customer value that is created from working with CWS. The problem is believed to be that customer needs and wants are not systematically integrated into the improvement work under CWS. As a result, it has been difficult for people within the organization to assess whether the output from CWS is customer value driven. The proposed solution in the thesis at hand is to develop a method that enables customer value driven continuous improvement through a systematic integration of the customer’s value perception into CWS. Research questions: To guide choices of literature and empirical studies from a research perspective, three research questions were formulated: - What dimensions, aspects and tools should be part of a practical method that enables customer value driven continuous improvements in sales and service? - How should customer value be defined in a continuous improvement context to fit the method? - How should the method be designed? Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to develop a method for systematic integration of the customer’s value perception into the continuous improvement work, to enable customer value driven continuous improvements of sales and service processes at Carlson Argentina S.A.. Methodology: The master thesis is a qualitative case study performed at Carlson in Argentina that is descriptive and evaluative. Primary data was collected through unstructured and semi-structured interviews as well as through participant- and direct-observation. Conclusions: The report introduces the Customer Value Assessment Method (CVAM) – a practical method for integrating the customer’s value perception in continuous improvements in sales and service processes. The overall win of using the method is that it enables customer value driven continuous improvements in sales and service processes. CVAM provides a practical contribution to Carlson’s work with CWS but is also of theoretical relevance in the academic fields of continuous improvement and customer value. Delimitations: The case study object is CWS, which is aimed at continuously improving sales and service processes, which is why the sales and service part of Carlson is targeted for research. The literature review is limited to frameworks on continuous improvement and customer value, without respect for the organizational challenges in implementing and managing change. Continuous improvement is the term commonly used for the frameworks lean and Six Sigma, which excludes other terms in these frameworks that are believed to not be suitable for sales and service processes.