A study of SST's in Australian banking from a business perspective - Streams for further research

Technology has dramatically altered the way businesses operate in a Business-to-Business(B2B) context and has had profound influences on services, altering the way services aredelivered (Bitner, Ostrom & Meuter, 2002). The increased use of self-service technologies(SSTs) could have a great impact on B2B relationships, yet there is little understanding of thisin the literature. Electronic banking is one technology that has streamlined businesstransactions, encouraged by banks as a way to reduce service delivery costs and improveservice quality for customers (Australian Bankers Association, 2000). The importance ofdeveloping and fostering relationships with customers has long been regarded as importantwithin services marketing (Berry, 1983) and also within B2B relationships (Ford, 1990). Inthe 1980s and 90s, a shift in marketing focus has seen an increased emphasis on RelationshipMarketing (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Recently, marketing theory has emerged with a focuson a service dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Therefore it is important to considerboth Relationship Marketing and Service Dominant Logic in order to have an increasedunderstanding of the impact of SSTs on business relationships. This is the beginning of aresearch project aimed at answering the research question ?What impact does the use ofSSTs have on relationships within a B2B context?? This will be examined in the contextof electronic banking, however it is anticipated that this will be applicable in other contextswhere SSTs are used by businesses.