Exploring the Effectiveness of Solutions in the ICT Security Business

Numerous empirical studies have highlighted the economic consequences of customer-supplier relation- ships, particularly those in business markets, as such relationships give rise to various costs and benefits for the companies involved. These costs and benefits have spurred an effort to conceptualise and assess the value of business relationships. The growing amount of literature on the issue of relationship value contains several interpretations of value with some marked differences. However, the interest in this topic seems to be ebbing and, despite all the efforts, the concept of the relationship value has had little follow- ing in practice. By reporting the findings of a bilateral in-depth study of fourteen buyer-seller relation- ships in the business security market, this study captures the dimensions of relationship value as it is per- ceived by both suppliers and customers. The conclusion is that, if the conceptualisation and assessment of relationship value are to be advanced, the actors’ perspectives and the time dimension of relationships, both of which have been undervalued in past research, should be taken into account.