Accelerating Service Innovation with Global Account Management – A Case Study at a Manufacturing MNC

Abstract: Title: Accelerating Service Innovation with Global Account Management – A Case Study at a Manufacturing MNC Author: Emma Malmström – Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management, [email protected] Tutors: Malin Olander Roese – PhD Researcher, Department of Design Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University and Susanna Bill – PhD Student, Department of Design Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University Issue of Study: This master thesis is conducted as a case study at a large, mature, manufacturing company; referred to as the MNC. Like many other global, business-to-business, manufacturing companies, the MNC works with global account management. The MNC’s global accounts are large, global customers of high strategic importance to the MNC. The Service Organisation is a company within the MNC. They drive service as a business and currently many new services are being developed within the central unit of the Service Organisation. The study focuses on how the central unit of the Service Organisation can be more customer-driven and accelerate service innovation by making better use of the Global Account Teams. The thesis also aims to fill the theoretical gap in existing literature regarding what role the global account management function can play for a company’s open service innovation approach. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to increase the understanding of how a company’s global accounts’ needs can be used to initiate and drive service innovation and thus, how global account management can be used to strengthen the competitive edge in service innovation. Method: The study was designed as a qualitative case study with an abductive reasoning approach. The empirical data were collected through 30 one-to-one, semi-structured interviews held with MNC employees and 10 observations made of the Service Organisation’s weekly service development project status meetings. Conclusions: In summary, the Global Account Teams can contribute to a more agile, customer-driven service innovation and thus, play an important role in a company’s open service innovation. The Global Account Teams can help to prioritise between customer needs, increase the early customer engagement in service development projects, drive deployment through central agreements and contribute to a customer-dominant logic in the service innovation. All this increases both relevance and speed of the service developments, which strengthens the competitive edge in service innovation.