Improving Customer Service through Just-in-Time Distribution : Fitting into the customer’s service offer in case of ELECTROLUX LAUNDRY SYSTEMS

The international environment today has been undergoing unprecedented change and many companies are seeking new ways to stand out from the competition by sustaining their competitive advantage. Internationalization and firms’ consolidation increase competition in the dynamic marketplace .Companies are no longer staying competitive simply through focusing on product quality and pricing as customers are becoming more high-demanding related to customer service offer. This issue directs the companies’ main focus today to address the customer needs in the ever-changing environment.In order to be the winners in the marketplace, timing and superior customer service are becoming the keys to attain competitive advantage for a company. Time-based competition is an important issue that many companies are facing currently as customers are becoming more time-sensitive and time-oriented in terms of better services, reliability and delivery. To keep up with the changes in demand from customers, it is important to satisfy customers’ objectives and needs in order to provide superior customer service, thus, establish good relationship with them. In the ever-changing and dynamic business environment company needs to adapt and exploit the changes in order to meet the new challenges in the marketplace. It is crucial for the company to respond to changing needs of existing customers and seeking to serve new customers externally. The ways to renew the customers’ services and how they are delivered are critical capabilities for many companies to acquire nowadays. This leads to increasing interaction between marketing and logistics where logistics is considered a platform for supporting new strategic moves on the market.This master thesis originates from a need to research the links between customer service improvement and Just-in-time distribution in order to sustain competitive advantage. We propose to extend the Just-In-Time concept to incorporate a customer perspective, which results in changes the warehousing, ordering and delivering routines. Subsequently, this creates timing ability as well as coordination of information and material flows through timely decisions, which are difficult for competitors to emulate. Based on our analysis and conclusion, companies are recommended to shift from the traditional production-oriented to market-oriented focuses through incorporation of customers' perspective into the value chain. To deploy this, companies should start from the customer end and understand customers' needs and establish mutual beneficial relationships with customers. Long-lasting business relationships ultimately determine the success of the company. Furthermore, we conclude that successful learning to change the routines requires time for the transformation of traditional delivery practice to perform direct deliveries activities. They are based on the common understanding of the tasks and rules as well as common codes of internal coordination processes