Managing Client Contacts of Small KIBS Companies:Turning Technology into Business

This article investigates how small companies providing new-technology-based services (T-KIBS) manage their client contacts. Many KIBS companies have extensive and close contacts with their clients, to the extent that their services can actually be co-produced together with the clients. This study analyzes data from four empirical cases and provides new knowledge on the relevance, forms and consequences of managing client contacts. The data was collected through ethnographic field work and qualitative interviews with the owner-managers of four Finnish software service companies, which can also be called T-KIBS. The results show that although every company had its unique way of managing its client contacts, they all used their client contacts as a vehicle in turning technology into business.