Relationship emergence and the usage of digital channels in the emergence process

Abstract

In recent years business-to-business (B2B) marketing has become increasingly important for economies around the world due to improved international trade infrastructures, regional integration and emergence of whole new markets. Competitive landscape has become universal and extremely dynamic, which also has made the market very complex and intense. In order to deal with global challenges and opportunities and to achieve growth, companies must find well-functioning international marketing practices. Relationships between organizations are seen to be crucial to the survival of the company and creation of competitive advantage. Also, in the global markets and marketing the usage of digital channels have been noticed to have an important function. The objective of this study is to gain understanding about how do relationships emerge in global industrial markets and the context of industrial equipment manufacturing. Also, the elements of digital marketing in the relationship birth are being explored. The research is executed as a case study. The case company is a Finnish industrial company working with raw materials - mostly mines and quarries. In the interest of improving the profitability of the case company, the value proposal of the case company and its opportunities for service business are also explored. As a whole the births of business relationships of the case company seem to follow the theory and framework of Mandjak et al. (2015) called the Relationship Emerging Flow. There the relationships develop from starting situation to awareness creation, then through initiation to interaction process and finally trust becomes the crucial stage whether to engage in a relationship or not. Digital channels have a strong overall role in all of the phases of the process but especially in the stage of information search.