Business-IT Alignment in PSS Value Networks
Linking Customer Knowledge Management to Social Customer Relationship
Management
Samaneh Bagheri, Rob J. Kusters and Jos J. M. Trienekens
School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Keywords: Business-IT Alignment, PSS Value Network, CKM, Customer Understanding, SCRM.
Abstract: Offering a PSS that is based on co-creating value with customer, starts with understanding customer needs.
Customer understanding is realized through the process of managing customer knowledge across a PSS
value network. In this respect, customer knowledge management (CKM) is seen as a core business
capability. We extend the notion of CKM capability to a PSS value network, defining it as a value network
CKM (VN-CKM) capability. We also look at the supportive IT capability, which we define as the value
network social customer relationship management (VN-SCRM) capability. At operational level VN-CKM
and VN-SCRM capabilities are reflected in the execution of business processes and information systems. To
achieve BIA, a linkage is required between the VN-CKM capability and the VN-SCRM capability and
between its accompanying business processes and systems. If in the process of VN-CKM, activities such as
creation, storage/retrieve, transfer, and usage of customer knowledge are enabled by VN-SCRM systems
across a network, the established BIA will support the functioning of the PSS. In this study we discuss the
role of a VN-SCRM capability and identify requirement components of accompanying systems in relation
to a VN-CKM capability and accompanying processes, in order to foster BIA at a network level.
1 INTRODUCTION
Offering a product-service system (PSS) emerges as
a new business strategy which is inherently based on
collaboration within dynamic network of partners
and co-creation with customers. By a PSS we mean
a longitudinal relational process among multiple
actors, including customers, within a value network
during which they provide bundles of goods and
services as an integrated solution, aimed at meeting
individual customer's needs (Grӧnroos, 2011;
Hakanen, 2014; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003;
Storbacka et al., 2013). Since IT is regarded as a
technological foundation for the operations of such
networks, it is essential to align IT with the business
strategy and the operations of the PSS value
network. According to Henderson and Venkatraman
(1993) achieving business-IT alignment (BIA)
requires the degree of fit between business strategy
and IT strategy (strategic alignment), and between
business processes and supportive concrete
information systems (operational alignment). Unlike
firm-level studies on BIA, network-level studies are
still in their nascent phases. To remedy this, we
already have elaborated the notion of BIA for a PSS
value network in which we took a capability-based
perspective and claimed the status of BIA at a
strategic level can be determined on the basis of an
alignment between business and IT capabilities
(Bagheri et al., 2014). In this paper we focus on one
particular aspect of the capability-based framework,
i.e. the relationship between the core capabilities of
customer understanding and IT integration
capabilities across a PSS value network. In order to
operationalize these constructs, we introduce the
notions of the customer knowledge management
(CKM) capability of the value network (VN-CKM)
as a relevant aspect of customer understanding
capability. Also we define the social customer
relationship management (SCRM) capability of the
value network (VN-SCRM) as a relevant aspect of
IT integration capability which is basically
considered as the ability of a network to provide
inter-organizational SCRM systems integration
across a value network. As a result in this paper the
relationship between VN-CKM capability with VN-
SCRM capability (i.e. strategic BIA) as well as
relationship between VN-CKM processes with a
249
Bagheri S., J. Kusters R. and J. M. Trienekens J..
Business-IT Alignment in PSS Value Networks - Linking Customer Knowledge Management to Social Customer Relationship Management.
DOI: 10.5220/0005370002490257
In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2015), pages 249-257
ISBN: 978-989-758-098-7
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
VN-SCRM systems (i.e. operational BIA) will be
discussed. This will lead to identification of required
components of the supporting systems at a network
level. Summarizing, this study aims to answer three
research questions:
1) What are usable definitions of VN-CKM and
VN-SCRM?
2) How can we investigate alignment at network
level in the area of VN-CKM and VN-SCRM?
3) What are the required components of VN-SCRM
systems at the network level?
This study contributes to the emerging literature on
BIA research in a context of PSS value networks in
twofold: Firstly, we elaborate the notions of CKM
and SCRM at a network-level. Secondly, we focus at
BIA by investigating the relationship between VN-
SCRM and VN-CKM as one of the main aspects of
BIA in the context of PSS value networks. The
outline of the paper is as follows. Current work is
discussed in section two. Section three describes the
research approach. Section four develops definitions
for VN-CKM capability and processes and for VN-
SCRM capability and systems, while section five
answers questions two and three. The final section
presents conclusions and indicates directions for
further research.
2 CURRENT WORK
Customer knowledge is considered as a prerequisite
for customer understanding. By acquiring and
managing customer knowledge, organizations can
better understand customers’ characteristics, needs,
and preferences (Weng et al., 2012). Customer
knowledge can be classified as knowledge “for”,
“about”, and “from” customers (Bueren et al., 2004;
Salomann et al., 2005; Gebert et al., 2003; Su et al.,
2006; Gibbert et al., 2002; Smith and McKeen
2005).
(1) Knowledge “for” customers is required to satisfy
knowledge needs of customers such as
knowledge about products, suppliers, and
markets in order to make better purchase
decisions.
(2) Knowledge “about” customers is accumulated to
understand motivations of customers and to
address these in a product. This includes
customer history, connections, requirements,
expectations, and purchasing activities (which is
domain of traditional CRM systems).
(3) Knowledge “from” customers represents
knowledge residing in customers. By direct
interactions with customers this knowledge can
be gathered to feed continuous improvement, e.g.
service improvements or new product
developments.
Nowadays the knowledge flow between a firm and
its customers changes from a unilateral direction
from firms to customers (i.e. “for”, “about”) or
customers to firms (i.e. “from”), to a bi-directional
relationship through productive dialogue and
cooperation of a company with its customers for
mutual benefits and joint value creation, which is
called knowledge co-creation “with” customer
(Buchnowska, 2011; Skotis et al., 2013; Smith and
McKeen, 2005).
A customer knowledge management (CKM)
capability has been introduced as a strategic
capability of an organization to employ an ongoing
process of creation, storage / retrieval, transfer, and
usage of customer knowledge with an emphasis on a
bi-directional interaction between firms and their
customers to the benefit of both customer and firm
(Belkahla and Triki 2011; Buchnowska, 2011;
Gibbert et al., 2002; Lin, 2007; Lin et al., 2006;
Skotis et al., 2013; Zhang, 2011). These processes
improve a firm's ability to identify real customer
needs (Belbaly et al., 2007).
While a successful CKM initiative requires
support from people, processes and information
systems (Khodakarami and Chan 2014; Liberona et
al., 2013; Tanriverdi, 2005) we concentrate in the
BIA context on the technological enabler. In this
respect, customer relationship management (CRM)
systems which are nowadays enhanced by social
media applications- known as social CRM (SCRM)-
can facilitate customer knowledge processes. In fact
SCRM provides greater access to customer
experience and knowledge (Trainor et al., 2014).
However, there is no consensus within academia on
the definition of SCRM. In different definitions
various perspectives are being used, such as a
process, a strategy, a philosophy, a capability, and a
technology-based perspectives (Faase et al., 2011;
Greenberg, 2010; Küpper et al., 2014; Trainor et al.,
2014; Zablah et al., 2004; Reinhold and Alt 2013).
An example of a definition is: a SCRM capability is
the ability of a firm to integrate traditional sale-and
marketing-centric CRM systems with emergent
social media applications, to engage customers in
collaborative conversations and enhance customer
relationships (Trainor et al., 2014). Additional
features of social CRM such as social networking,
two-way communication, interactive relationship,
ICEIS2015-17thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems
250
and user-generated content enables a SCRM
capability to provide support for the management of
co-creation knowledge with customers (Kärkkäinen
et al., 2011; Küpper et al., 2014; Skotis et al., 2013);
(Kärkkäinen et al., 2011; Küpper et al., 2014; Skotis
et al., 2013).
So far the existing theories on CKM and SCRM
capabilities have been restricted to a firm-level
setting, where a single firm aims to achieve a desired
improvement or innovation in its products through
the co-creation with customers, is not tailored to the
specific situations of PSS value networks. The PSS
value network is based on a customer-centric view
on the co-creation of integrated solutions where
multiple actors (including customers) collaborate
with each other, based on their core competencies
and sharing their knowledge and resources to
provide customized offerings (Gebauer et al., 2013;
Lusch and Webster, 2011; Peppard and Rylander,
2006). Therefore, the provision of integrated
solutions requires a shared understanding of all
actors about the customer problems and expectations
(Hakanen and Jaakkola 2012). Moreover, solution
providers are dealing with the customer process, i.e.
the so-called value-in-use, and as a consequence
value networks have to understand customer
business activities where customers are actively
involved in this process (Jaakkola and Hakanen,
2012). According to these characteristics of a PSS
value network we can conclude that at a network-
level, it is necessary to take into account
collaborative and relational aspects to define SCRM
and CKM in order to make them applicable across
the network. In doing so, we extend the notions of
CKM and SCRM into the PSS value network
respectively name as value network CKM (VN-
CKM) and value network SCRM (VN-SCRM). In
addition we will discuss the relationship between
VN-SCRM and VN-CKM which will contribute to
BIA literature at a network level.
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This section discusses the research methodology that
has been followed when answering the two research
questions. While prior firm-level studies on CKM
and SCRM can serve as a foundation for this
research, their definitions and characteristics need
modification to be applicable within a PSS value
network environment. Therefore to answer the first
question, a structured literature review has been
carried out to derive the basic definitions of CKM
and SCRM. Due to multidisciplinary nature of the
topic, journals in the field of MIS, knowledge
management and marketing are reviewed by using
keyword terms such as customer knowledge
management, social CRM, knowledge management,
customer understanding, social media, and CRM.
The literature search process consists of two main
activities. First a generic search was used to identify
a number of well-known and well referenced authors
of papers on CKM and SCRM capabilities within
scientific databases. Second relevant papers were
used in a backward (i.e. looking at papers cited) and
forward (i.e. looking at papers citing the paper)
snowball process. The search processes resulted in
the collection of relevant papers which we analysed
to identify the main aspects of CKM and SCRM
definitions. Then, we adapted them in accordance
with the identified characteristics of a PSS value
network. The proposed definitions of the VN-CKM
and VN-SCRM are discussed in the next section.
Regarding the second research question, to
achieve BIA the incorporation of a strategic and
operational level is required. While BIA at a
strategic level deals with decisions regarding the key
capabilities, the operational level is concerned with
processes and supportive information systems
(Henderson and Venkatraman 1993; Maes et al.,
2000). As illustrated in figure 1 we will look at a
relationship between VN-SRCM and VN-CKM
capabilities at a strategic level. At an operational
level these capabilities are reflected in VN-CKM
processes and VN-SCRM systems, so we investigate
the supports provided by different SCRM systems in
VN-CKM processes.
Figure 1: Research framework on BIA.
Since both aspects of BIA have received no
sufficient coverage in a PSS value network context,
we review firm-level studies that will provide a basis
for further discussion at a network level. Then
applying the novel network-level perspectives on
CKM and SCRM enables us to derive the possible
linkages between the VN-SCRM capability and
systems in the VN-CKM capability and processes.
As a result we propose a theoretical relationship
between them. Regarding strategic BIA we argue
that for VN-CKM as a type of business capability
Business-ITAlignmentinPSSValueNetworks-LinkingCustomerKnowledgeManagementtoSocialCustomer
RelationshipManagement
251
the VN-SCRM capability is an appropriate IT
capability. We will discuss this in detail in section
five. Regarding operational BIA, we need to
understand the role of VN-SCRM systems in the
processes of creation, storage/retrieval, transfer, and
usage of customer knowledge. If different VN-
SCRM systems provide support for these processes
across the value network, the established BIA results
from a relationship between VN-SCRM systems and
VN-CKM processes is likely to contribute to co-
creating integrated solutions.
4 DEFINITION DEVELOPMENT
Here we define the VN-CKM and VN-SCRM and
discuss the novel aspects of our definitions.
4.1 VN-CKM Capability and Process
We define the value network customer knowledge
management capability (VN-CKM) as a strategic
capability of a value network to collaboratively
employ an ongoing process of creation,
storage/retrieval, transfer, and usage of the value
network knowledge “with” customers that is
applicable across the value network with emphasis
on bi-directional interaction of multiple actors with
customers, to all actors and customers benefits. This
capability facilitates a shared understanding of
customers’ needs among actors which in turn results
in the creating of superior solutions “with”
customers. Comparing this with the aforementioned
definition of the CKM capability at firm-level the
novel aspects of our definition are:
1) Collaborative attempts of all actors in the CKM
processes take place across the network. In fact
doing joint activities is the fundamental premise
of any PSS value networks.
2) We highlight the concept “value network
knowledge with customer” which goes beyond
the two-actor focus (in previous definitions of
knowledge with customer) and moves to a multi-
actor network focus. It is derived from the
productive dialogue and interaction of multiple
actors with customers.
3) The CKM processes across the network reflect
an ongoing process of learning and experience
sharing of all actors with customers, in order to
create a shared understanding of the customer’
needs across the network which in turn reflects
the customer-centric premise of a PSS value
network.
To define the activities of the VN-CKM process
we modified the general definitions of the
knowledge management process as proposed by
Alavi and Leidner (2001) in accordance with the
main characteristics of a PSS value network in
which all actors collaborate in such a process.
The value network customer knowledge (VN-
CK) creation activity involves the development of
new contents or replacing and updating the
network’s existing knowledge related to the
customer, in collaboration with all actors.
The VN-CK storage/retrieve activity, also called
the network memory, includes the process of making
the customer knowledge persistent and then
supporting quick access to them across the network.
The VN-CK transfer activity refers to the
process by which the value network shares customer
knowledge among actors through interactions that
take place among them. This process mainly deals
with problem solving process (Scherp et al. 2009)
where customers or other actors get their feedback
and suggestions to collaboratively solve a problem.
The VN-CK usage activity refers to the process
of the actual usage of customer knowledge across
the networks for the co-creation and the tailoring of
their offerings to the specific requirements of a
customer.
4.2 VN-SCRM Capability and Systems
We define the value network social customer
relationship management (VN-SCRM) capability as
a capability of a value network to integrate
traditional heterogeneous sale-and marketing-
focused CRM applications and data with emergent
social media applications and data distributed in a
PSS value network to engage customers in
collaborative conversations and enhance the
customer relationship. This capability enables a
value network to create customer relations at a
network level and support both transactional and
relational customer-faced processes among actors.
Comparing with the aforementioned definition of
SCRM capability the novel aspect of our definition
is:
This capability of a network is mainly dealing
with inter-organizational SCRM systems integration
at both an application and a data level (Bagheri et
al., 2014). Because customer-facing activities are
distributed across different actors, they have to be
integrated. Moreover, integration of heterogeneous
SCRM applications and data across a network is
required to reach sufficient customer information
exchange between actors and to support the
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collaborative customer-facing processes. As a result
all actors may instantly share their data and jointly
manage customer knowledge. This integration
enhances the visibility of the information throughout
networks which enables appropriate respond to the
customer demand (Hadaya and Cassivi, 2007).
Meanwhile, derived from general categories of
CRM systems we introduce three types of systems
provided by the VN-SCRM capability includes
analytical VN-SCRM, operational VN-SCRM, and
communicative VN-SCRM systems (Gebert et al.,
2002; Geib et al., 2006; Karimi et al., 2001; C.-T. Su
et al., 2006; Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). While
analytical VN-SCRM systems are used for the
building of data warehouses and analysing both
transactional and social media data among actors
operational VN-SCRM systems are used for the
incorporation of social media tools into cross-
organizational business processes of customer
service, marketing and sales activities among actors.
Communicative VN-SCRM systems are generally
used to manage and integrate customer interaction
touch points among actors. We state that Success of
the next generation SCRM systems will depend
upon integration of not only social media data and
applications with traditional CRM system within
standalone firm but also integration of such data and
applications across inter-organizational boundaries
(VN-SCRM). There are several configurations and
technical designs scenarios to support inter-
organizational information system integration.
Meanwhile the interoperability of diverse SCRM
application as well as data compatibility issues also
need to be considered in any attempt to develop
integrated SCRM systems across a PSS value
networks.
5 ALINGING VN-CKM AND
VN-SCRM
To achieve both strategic and operational BIA here,
we discuss the alignment of the VN-CKM capability
and the accompanying process with the VN-SCRM
capability and the accompanying systems.
Regarding strategic BIA, we argue that for the
VN-CKM capability the VN-SCRM capability is an
appropriate supportive IT capability. Because
according to our definitions in section four, on one
hand the VN-CKM as a customer-centric business
capability aims to co-create customer experience, on
the other hand the VN-SCRM capability as the
ability of a network to integrate SCRM systems
among actors aims to facilitate customer knowledge
management across the network. Such customer
knowledge helps value network address customer
needs in co-creation integrated solution as a desired
goal of VN-CKM capability.
Regarding operational BIA, in order to
understand the possible supports provided by
VN-SCRM systems in the process of VN-CKM, we
first briefly overview the research streams within a
firm-level environment on supports provided by
CRM/SCRM systems in CKM processes and
support of social media tools on CKM process and
knowledge management process in general which is
also summarized in table 1. Regarding the
contribution of CRM in CKM processes,
Khodakarami and Chan (2014) investigated the
relevant studies in this field and then examined the
possible support provided by the different types of
CRM systems, including analytical, operational and
communicative systems for different types of
customer knowledge. They determined the level of
support that these systems provide for knowledge
creation processes, as well as the type of customer
knowledge that they are well suited to create, based
on the systems’ capabilities and functionality. Xu
and Walton (2005) develop a conceptual model to
show the role of analytical CRM system for
customer knowledge acquisition. In the framework
proposed by Ranjan and Bhatnagar (2011) the role
of analytical, operational and communicative CRM
systems are examined to provide support for
different types of customer knowledge.The whole
process of customer knowledge creation, storage,
dissemination and usage is managed on the basis of
the framework.
While many studies have focused on the
contributions of new emerging social media tools to
the knowledge management process (Panahi et al.,
2012; Avram, 2006; Levy, 2009; Scherp et al.,
2009), studies on the applicability of SCRM for
facilitating customer knowledge process are still in
progress. Since research in the field of SCRM is still
in progress, previous studies have been mostly
dealing with the question such as how to integrate
customer-centric functionalities provided by social
media applications in the traditional sales- and
marketing-centric CRM system in order to get
additional value of SCRM in CRM processes (Alt
and Reinhold, 2012; Trainor, 2012). Skotis et al.,
(2013) in their conceptual work discuss on how
emergent social media tools and networking
technologies facilitate CKM processes with more
emphasis on knowledge co-creation with customers.
Chua and Banerjee (2013) by doing case study
Business-ITAlignmentinPSSValueNetworks-LinkingCustomerKnowledgeManagementtoSocialCustomer
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253
Table 1: Review of similar studies at firm-level setting on supports provided by CRM/SCRM systems or social media
applications in KM or CKM processes.
Study
Topic
CRM/SCRM Social media KM CKM
Xu and Walton
(2005)
Analytical CRM N/A N/A
Knowledge about customer
acquisition
Khodakarami and
Chan (2014)
Operational, communicative
and analytical CRM
systems
N/A
Customer knowledge
creation cycle, Knowledge
for/from/ about customer,
Ranjan and
Bhatnagar (2011)
Operational, communicative
and analytical CRM
systems
N/A N/A
Knowledge for/from/ about
customer,
CKM process
Toriani and
Angeloni (2011)
Operational, communicative
and analytical CRM
systems
N/A
Knowledge creation
cycle
N/A
Panahi et al., (2012) N/A Characteristics of social media
Tacit knowledge
sharing
N/A
Avram (2006);Ray
(2014); Scherp et al.,
(2009)
N/A
Weblogs, wikis and social
networking applications
KM process N/A
C.-T. Su et al.,
(2006)
Operational, communicative
and analytical CRM
systems
N/A N/A
Knowledge for/from/ about
customer
Zhang (2011) N/A General SM applications N/A General knowledge
Kärkkäinen et al.,
(2011)
N/A General SM applications KM process
Sharing and creation of
customer knowledge
Skotis et al., (2013)
N/A
General SM applications N/A
CKM process
Chua and Banerjee
(2013); Boateng
(2014)
N/A
Microblog, social networking ,
location-aware mobile system,
corporate discussion forum
N/A
Knowledge for/from/ about
customer
Shang et al., (2011)
N/A
Various Web 2.0 applications
Knowledge creation
cycle
N/A
Levy (2009)
N/A
Blogs, Wikis, RSS, social
tagging, social networking
KM theory N/A
Shaw et al., (2001)
Analytical CRM (data
mining)
N/A KM process General knowledge
Durgam and Sinha
(2014)
SCRM activities N/A
Knowledge creation
cycle
General knowledge
research investigated the extent to which the use of
social media can support customer knowledge
management (CKM) in organizations. More recently
Durgam and Sinha (2014) by conducting four case
studies explain how SCRM activities can be prolific
in organizational knowledge creation cycle.
These firm-level studies show that CRM/SCRM
systems and social media applications provide
supports for managing customer knowledge process.
We believe that the logic behind such supports -
after modification based on novel characteristics of
PSS value network- is also applicable in the context
of this research. Regarding novel aspects of VN-
CKM (i.e. co-creation knowledge with customer and
joint customer knowledge management activities of
all actors within a dynamic and agile PSS value
network environment), required components of VN-
SCRM systems which aims to provide support for
VN-CKM processes across the network are
discussed.
VN-CK Creation Activity: Analytical VN-SCRM
systems have to be able to analyse both structured
and unstructured customer data distributed in a
network in order to support the customer knowledge
creation activity. Most of current analytical
applications such as data mining and data
warehousing are aimed at serving individual firms
(Rizzi 2012). Dynamic situation of PSS value
network requires innovative approaches to provide
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integrated analytical SCRM system. We state that
the development of collaborative business
intelligence, such as data warehouse integration,
social media monitoring and mining, sentiment
analysis, text mining, and social Business
Intelligence, enable analytical VN-SCRM systems to
provide a collaborative basis for a customer
knowledge discovery among actors.
Communicative VN-SCRM systems also provide
support for VN-CK creation activity if they can
provide integrated customer interaction channel
among actors (e.g. PSS value network social portal)
through which customers can share their idea and
experience and actors are able to communicate
customers’ needs. Thereby the integrated
communicative SCRM systems across a network
will support social interaction and learning,
conversation, and content creation which in turn
facilitate the process of collaborative customer
knowledge creation among actors and also co-
creation knowledge with customer.
VN-CK Storage/Retrieve Activity: given support for
this activity, analytical and operational VN-SCRM
systems have to develop integrated customer
knowledge repository and shared database (both
structured and unstructured data) among actors
respectively. In fact the shared databases of
operational VN-SCRM- that incorporate both social
media and transactional data distributed in the
network- provides a basis for analytical VN-SCRM
to extract useful information and combine and store
it in a customer knowledge repository of the
network.
VN-CK Transfer Activity: communicative VN-
SCRM systems require having rich transferring
channels such as PSS value network discussion
forums to offer opportunities for sharing customer
knowledge and enabling involved actors to give their
suggestions on customer problems and discuss on
them (Scherp et al., 2009). Co-learning from
customer knowledge sharing leads value networks to
enhance their solution offerings.
VN-CK Usage Activity: analytical VN-SCRM
systems require developing social network-based
expert systems to facilitate customer knowledge
usage by actors which in turn reflects in integrated
solutions
.
The above mentioned proposed components of each
type of VN-SCRM systems represent basic building
blocks of integrated SCRM systems across a PSS
value network in order to provide support for VN-
CKM processes.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Business-IT alignment (BIA) can be discussed from
a capability point of view. This paper seeks to
provide further insights into BIA in a PSS value
network environment by looking at one particular
aspect of BIA, i.e. the relationship between the VN-
CKM capability and accompanying processes and
the VN-SCRM capability and accompanying
systems. In doing so, first we elaborate the notion of
VN-CKM capability as a type of business capability
and its accompanying processes and the notion of
VN-SCRM capability as a type of IT capability and
its accompanying systems. Second, to derive BIA
we looked at the relationship between VN-CKM and
VN-SCRM at both a strategic and an operational
level. Regarding strategic BIA, in order to achieve
the desired aim of a PSS value network, i.e. co-
creation integrated solution, aligning the VN-CKM
capability with the VN-SCRM capability is required.
At an operational level, if in the process of VN-
CKM, activities such as creation, storage/retrieve,
transfer, and usage of customer knowledge are
enabled by integrated SCRM systems across a
network, the ensuring business-IT alignment (BIA)
is likely to contribute in the co-creation of solution
offerings. In doing so, the required components of
analytical, operational, and communicative VN-
SCRM systems are defined.
This paper provides a theoretical foundation for
the next step of our research in which the practical
applicability of the proposed constructs, and the
supports provided by VN-SCRM capability and
systems in VN-CKM capability and processes will
be examined through case studies. Here, we only
consider strategic and operational aspects of BIA,
future study should also consider structural and
social aspect of BIA within such a complex context.
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