Pay at the Pump: A Story of Technological Convenience and Friction in Business Networks

Sammanfattning

The fuel industry has experienced multiple disruptive changes over the last few years. Electrification of the vehicle fleet and introduction of sustainable fuel alternatives have fragmented the market, applying pressure onto incumbent fuel suppliers to adapt their businesses and extend their current value offerings. Meanwhile, the current closed-loop payment systems used for fuel purchases are challenged by emergent payment technology such as open-loop cards combined with mobile applications, wallets, and telematics. While such changes have been studied in a B2C context, the impact this will have on B2B-relationships in the fuel industry remains unexplored. By applying a network approach, using the Activity-Resource-Actor framework outlined in IMP research, this master’s thesis investigates how emergent payment technology can affect current SME customer-supplier relationships in the fuel industry, and how this can create value or friction for the customers using a qualitative method consisting of 21 semi-structured interviews with customers and technology developers in the business network. The study's main finding is that emergent payment technology will create conditions for restructuring current customer-supplier relationships rather than cause the restructuring itself. Furthermore, the study finds that cognitive and habitual aspects are foundational for successful implementation of the technology. In comparison to traditional IMP research, this thesis studies a tentative resource which could explain both why cognitive aspects are prevalent and why the change is primarily supplier-driven. The findings bring new insights to the IMP community on how tentative resources could affect B2B-relationships in business networks. Further research is called upon for comparing these empirical findings with functional evaluation and technological adoption of an actualized, future resource.