Title :
Identification of Customer Preferences for New Service Development in the Electricity Domain
Author :
Domigall, Yannic ; Albani, Antonia ; Winter, Robert
Author_Institution :
Inst. of Inf. Manage., Univ. of St.Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Abstract :
The electricity domain is currently facing fundamental change on both, the production and the distribution side. In order to compete on this fast changing market, there is a high need for differentiation possibilities of the electricity suppliers as e.g., through new and innovative services. To set the right incentives to customers and offer them the right value propositions, beside a sound knowledge of the customer preferences also the involvement of the customers in the new service development process by means of co-creation is of high importance. This paper contributes to the new service development process in the electricity domain through the identification of customer segments and customer preference relations, represented by respective utility functions. The main findings presented are the results of a choice based conjoint analysis with a total of 107 respondents executed in order to gather the said customer´s preferences regarding possible new future services. The customer segmentation was carried out with latent class. The analysis is embedded in a research framework that uses a multi-method approach with a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, integrating the customers by means of co-creation.
Keywords :
customer profiles; electricity supply industry; innovation management; utility theory; choice-based conjoint analysis; customer preference relation identification; customer segment identification; electricity domain; electricity suppliers; innovative services; multimethod approach; new service development process; qualitative methods; quantitative methods; utility functions; Analytical models; Biological system modeling; Electricity; Industries; Internet; Pricing; Production; Customer preferences; choice-based conjoint;
Conference_Titel :
Business Informatics (CBI), 2014 IEEE 16th Conference on
Conference_Location :
Geneva
DOI :
10.1109/CBI.2014.34