Communication between outsourcing firm and service provider in global context : case study

Information flow is a central element of supply chain management and empirical evidence suggests that information delays contribute to the loss of sales revenue to a larger extent than material delays do. This is the main reason why this thesis aims to identify ways to enhance inter-firm and intra-firm communication. The research gap pertains to communication climate in a supply chain context because it seems few studies examining the topic have been conducted in the past. To address communication and supply chain collaboration challenges, the following research questions were developed: How to create a theoretical framework to analyze multidisciplinary literature pertaining to knowledge sharing, information sharing, and supply chain collaboration?, How do the production facility, sales, and order to remittance team collaborate with the outsourced customer care? and How can communication be enhanced between the aforementioned units? To conduct research, a case study method was chosen. The Case Company is a global, industrial firm that has outsourced its customer care. Multiple departments of the Case Company, located in different countries, communicate with the service provider. The data was collected using multiple sources of evidence and after gathering the data, analysis was conducted in NVivo. To increase the credibility and dependability, data triangulation was used. The key results show that first, outsourcing decreased visibility into the order fulfillment process. Second, high employee turnover at service provider resulted in disruptions in processes and information flow. Third, logistics ought to be involved in outsourcing decision-making. Fourth, visiting the service provider had a positive effect on service quality and communication. This thesis contributes to the previous literature by, for example, combining the knowledge management and supply chain literature. The results may be of interest to practitioners considering services outsourcing since this thesis describes a real-life case in detail. This contributes to transferability. However, the results may not be generalizable to all sectors or countries since the data were gathered from two companies that operate within the same supply chain