eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Electronic Invoicing (E-invoicing) has been going through fast development during recent years. It is believed to bring great savings for companies. There has been a lot of research and studies on E-invoicing. This study is going to study on how E-invoicing operators could create value but from users' perspective. The study is going to build its own value creation framework based on Amit and Zott's value creation model in E-business, which defines four value creation dimensions, i.e., efficiency, complementarity, lock-in and novelty. First, extensive literature reviews on value creation theories, including value chain, transaction cost economy, resource-based view of firms and network economy, were conducted. Besides, enterprise application integration and expert opinion were also taken into consideration. As a result, the new value creation framework came out with four modified value drivers, namely efficiency, complementary services, integration and network effects. The changes were made because it is more suitable in the context of E-invoicing. Furthermore, for each of the value drivers, a set of measurement items were identified to evaluate how an E-invoicing operator performed in providing the service. In the empirical part, two case studies are completed. Interviews were prepared and done with E-invoicing managers inside the company. It turns out that all the four value creation sources, efficiency, complementary services, integration and network effects, are observed in the company. As users of E-invoicing, the companies thought E-invoicing improves efficiency by reducing the invoice cycle time, saving costs, and eliminating human touch in the process. Supplier activation is seen as an important area where operators could improve their services. Integration of systems especially automatic accounting is regarded as the future development of E-invoicing but not yet under development in practice. Standardization is needed to enable E-invoice usage between different operators and networks. This study is important in providing a new perspective on E-invoicing research and development. It not only contributes to the E-invoicing literature but also could act as guidance for E-invoicing operators on how to improve their services. It has limitations such as on the resources of information and future research areas are identified. For example, quantified research methods could be used to measure how important each value drive is.