B2B growth and sales · Qualitative case study
Digitalizing Customer Journeys in B2B Markets
Lundin, L., & Kindström, D. (2023). Journal of Business Research, 157, 113639.
Plain-English take
The study identifies changes to digital touchpoints, customer and supplier roles, and the journey process. For your marketing: This is a reminder to design digital touchpoints for the full B2B relationship, including customer use and service.
How much weight to give this
2.5/5 Limited or context-dependent evidence
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
This design is useful for description or theory-building, but does not isolate a causal effect.
Small sample reported (29); treat the result as exploratory.
No randomized control group is reported for this design.
This profile could be checked against an abstract or metadata, not the full paper.
Double-blind? Not applicable in the same way as a participant-treatment experiment.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How does digitalization change touchpoints, participant roles, and the overall B2B customer journey?
Design
In-depth case study of one large multinational manufacturer and four matched customer firms, based on interviews and documents.
Sample and setting
A Swedish manufacturer of complex capital-intensive products and four business customers; 29 interviews across supplier and customer organizations.
Reported result
What the study found
The study identifies changes to digital touchpoints, customer and supplier roles, and the journey process. Digitalization can extend early discovery, activate customers, support later service interactions, and improve continuity across stages.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
One supplier and four customers; the authors position the work as initial evidence and theory generation rather than universal guidance.
Possible founder application
A reminder to design digital touchpoints for the full B2B relationship, including customer use and service. Transfer cautiously because the studied offerings are large, complex industrial products.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract and article page; access may vary
ScienceDirect publisher abstract and article page retrieved with Firecrawl; case scope and limitations were checked.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.