Influencing Factors and Strategies regarding B2B Customer’s Data Disclosure Behavior for Smart Services: A Qualitative Approach
(A2019-9206)

AUTHORS

Corinna Winkler, University of Passau; Curd-Georg Eggert, University of Passau; Jan Schumann, University of Passau

KEYWORDS

Smart Services; Business-to-Business; Data Disclosure

ABSTRACT

Due to decreasing costs of sensors and the trend of IIoT an increasing amount of B2B companies plan to provide smart services. They propose benefits to the customer through e.g. increased machine uptime. However, one prerequisite for the smart service delivery is the access to customer data. Extant research shows that privacy issues are critical for the adoption of data-driven services in B2C but lacks a detailed examination of B2B customers’ data disclosure behavior. Data from 26 interviews with experts of smart service providers in the manufacturing industry and their potential customers inform the study. We contribute to current research on the data disclosure behavior of B2B firms by identifying six new influencing factors: perceived data value, data sensitivity, data type, data gathering logic, opportunistic behavior, and industry setting. Moreover, we show three strategies that might mitigate the firms’ concerns: customer integration, business model, value quantification.