Critical factors in the solution process : A descriptive study
Saturated markets and a competitive business climate create pressure on organisation to find new ways to remain competitive and differentiated towards competitors. One new strategy is to adapt a more service oriented business, and more specifically a concept call solutions. Solutions is about moving from only selling e.g. products or single services, to offer a whole solution to cover more needs, an offer usually created together with the customers. This demand on the market together with limited research on the concept of solution, makes it an interesting area to study. The purpose with the study was to describe the whole solution process between the supplying firm and the customer. In order to do so, a longitudinal, dynamic model based on extant literature was developed, which consisted of three stages and 11 important factors throughout these three stages. The primary data collection came from interviews with managers from five companies, all experienced within the area of solution strategy. Out of the eleven theoretical factors, four factors were explicitly highlighted as most important.