The purchasing of technical consultancy services : a case study of buyer-seller relationships

Sammanfattning: This thesis focuses on how a corporation's purchasing of technical consultancy services can be described. The research problem is formulated in the light of the changing role of marketing and the shift from a transactional to a more relational approach. The first research question focuses on the purchasing activities carried out by a corporation in the relationship with the technical consultancy suppliers and how those activities are interrelated, while the second one is aimed at who is/are involved in the purchasing activities.A case study approach has been used and, although it has a strong focus on formal interviews with 20 persons, several other sources of evidence were used. The analysis is based on the perspectives of the buying corporation as well as four different technical consultancy suppliers. The buying corporation was found to be involved in nine different purchasing activities, which have been shown to fall into four different categories depending on their formal or informal nature as well as their short-term transaction or long-term relationship purpose. A Purchasing Activity Matrix is developed, which is also used to describe the shifts in the relationship between a corporation and its technical consultancy suppliers in terms of stages, i.e. the early stage, the networking stage, and the partnering stage, each adding a new category of purchasing activities.