Buying Business Services

Foreword
<p>Acknowledgements</p>
<p>About the Authors</p>
<p>PART I: INTRODUCTION</p>
<p>1 The Increased Importance of Buying Services</p>
<p>The service society</p>
<p>Services defined</p>
<p>Development of the purchasing function</p>
<p>Buying business services</p>
<p>Summary and book overview</p>
<p>2 Business Services, their Providers and Customers</p>
<p>Types of business services</p>
<p>Types of business service providers</p>
<p>Types of business service customers</p>
<p>Different forms of business services</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>PART II: BUSINESS SERVICES AS FUNCTIONS AND ACTIVITIES</p>
<p>3 Business services in terms of activities, resources and actors</p>
<p>Services described as activities and functions</p>
<p>The A–R–A model</p>
<p>Allocation of activities between actors</p>
<p>Conditions for allocation of activities: production technology</p>
<p>Analysing and changing activity structures</p>
<p>Buying business services as resourcing</p>
<p>Activities, resources, actors and the concept of Supply Chain Management</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>4 Outsourcing and insourcing of functions and activities</p>
<p>Some illustrations of outsourcing and arguments for favour and against</p>
<p>Strategic aspects</p>
<p>Performance aspects</p>
<p>Organizational aspects</p>
<p>Deliberate versus emergent outsourcing</p>
<p>Summary checklist</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>5 Buyer–Supplier Interaction in Business Services Exchange Processes</p>
<p>Exchange processes between buyer and seller</p>
<p>Describing and understanding business interactions</p>
<p>The nature of exchange processes in relation to the type of business service</p>
<p>The complexity of the service and the type of problem solution</p>
<p>The type of service application</p>
<p>Basic services versus problem–solving services – a comment</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>6 The Impact of E–commerce</p>
<p>E– commerce – a definition</p>
<p>Some key benefits of ICT</p>
<p>Enabling techniques</p>
<p>The potential of e–commerce</p>
<p>Basic forms of e–procurement</p>
<p>E–commerce and the interaction patterns between actors</p>
<p>E–commerce and the impact of patterns of division of labour along supply chains</p>
<p>E–commerce and its′ likely impact on different kinds of services</p>
<p>Barriers to exploiting e–technology</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>PART III: APPLICATIONS: THE PROCESS OF BUYING BUSINESS SERVICES</p>
<p>7 Specifying Business Services</p>
<p>Purchasing as a rational decision process</p>
<p>Service Level Agreements: a way of specifying business services</p>
<p>Methods for specifying business services</p>
<p>Business service quality</p>
<p>Quality deviations: when routines no longer work</p>
<p>Service quality assurance</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>8 Selecting and Evaluating Business Service Providers</p>
<p>The Importance of Supplier Selection and Evaluation</p>
<p>A model for data capture</p>
<p>Evaluation models</p>
<p>Prerequisites for a relationship: a matter of fit</p>
<p>Specific aspects to consider when the supplier is a service provider</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>9 Contracting Business Service Providers: Pricing, Negotiations and Payments</p>
<p>Pricing principles</p>
<p>Cost–based pricing</p>
<p>Market–based pricing</p>
<p>Value–based pricing</p>
<p>Interrelations between the three price elements</p>
<p>The impact of negotiation strategies</p>
<p>payment Principles</p>
<p>Conclusions</p>
<p>PART IV: REFLECTION</p>
<p>10 Transaction–oriented and Related–oriented purchasing</p>
<p>Transaction oriented purchasing philosophy</p>
<p>Relationship–oriented purchasing philosophy</p>
<p>Efficiency in supplier relations</p>
<p>Purchasing philosophy and buying business services</p>
<p>Purchasing philosophy and the use of ICT</p>
<p>Variations on the theme transaction vs. relation–oriented purchasing strategy</p>
<p>Combining different approaches</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>11 Buying business services: the market perspective versus the network perspective</p>
<p>Outer context: markets vs. networks</p>
<p>Purchasing in a market environment</p>
<p>Purchasing in a network environment</p>
<p>Two main categories of networks</p>
<p>Characterizing network structures</p>
<p>Networks of activities, actors and resources</p>
<p>The fundamentals of network structures</p>
<p>Networks as force fields</p>
<p>Networking to influence network structures and processes</p>
<p>Creating and designing supply structures</p>
<p>Markets and networks combined</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>12 Summary</p>
<p>The contents</p>
<p>Finally</p>
<p>References</p>
<p>Index</p>