De-commoditization in B2B Markets: A Communication Perspective

Customer-oriented communication is an essential element of successful B2B customer-supplier interactions. Effective customer communication enforces customer relationships and, hence, helps firms avoiding what the literature knows as “commodity trap”. Although the academic literature widely acknowledges the role of customer communication, studies on communication objectives, suitable instruments and effects throughout supplier-customer transactions are scarce. Against this background, and based on a single-case study of a machine tool manufacturer, this paper investigates communication objectives and instruments employed in various phases of the purchasing process. The study finds that during initiation, presentation and negotiation, the supplier intensified its communicative efforts. During the phase of production, however, communication efforts diminished. This is surprising taking into account that, from a theoretical perspective, joint activities between supplier and customer to create value build on a continuous and effective communication. The paper reflects on these results and derives avenues for future research.