Developing collaborative relationship between industrial service providers and their client: The case of industrial maintenance management

Recent years have increased the number of studies focusing on development and co-production of industrial services together with partners. The complexity of managing industrial services (e.g. maintenance) also causes crucial managerial needs; e.g. how to find the focal areas that should be paid attention to in order to find solutions for developing the collaboration between service provider and client. This study aims to provide a comprehensive and objective viewpoint to the development of collaborative relationships in industrial environment. The paper especially focuses on studying the antecedents affecting the development of collaboration and realization of the common value in the case of maintenance of industrial asset fleet. The current study is a part of larger applied research project focusing on the industrial service business development. Individual and group interviews in three case organizations as well as client interviews have been utilized in order to form a reliable view on the relationship development in maintenance management. The results of the study bring forth the following development areas and also specific managerial recommendations related to these four main areas, which are; 1) strengthening the customer perspective, 2) collaborative capability development, 3) organizing and decision support, and 4) monitoring of relationship development.