Glenn Parry

Professor Glenn Parry

Professor of Digital Transformation, Surrey Business School Impact Lead
PhD (Cantab), MSc, BSc, Dipl. Psychotherapy, PGCertEd
+44 (0)1483 684307
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59 MS 03

Academic and research departments

Department of Digital Economy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Biography

University roles and responsibilities

  • Impact

My publications

Publications

Bradley Peter, Parry Glenn, O?Regan Nicholas (2020) A framework to explore the functioning and sustainability of business models, Sustainable Production and Consumption 21 pp. 57-77 Elsevier
DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2019.10.007
This paper presents a framework to enable case study analysis of sustainable development from
business models innovation. Increasing economic development can give rise to trade-offs between
economic growth and environmental degradation. Business model innovation can help address such
trade-offs by refocusing value creation and capture towards less environmentally damaging activities.
Business models therefore provide a critical tool in the move towards sustainable development. In this
paper a literature review of existing business model frameworks is conducted and gaps found in the
definition and conceptualisation of value, alignment with sustainable development, and assessment of
social and environmental impacts and goals. More generally, there is a lack of in depth case studies in
the sustainable business model literature. A framework is developed to address these gaps and to allow
in depth analysis and understanding of the functioning of business models for sustainable development.
Development and piloting of the framework made use of literature and co-operative enquiry. The
framework of the paper is applied in depth with a unique energy company case study. Application
shows economies of scope to be critical to the delivery of sustainable development. The business
model framework addresses equity and distributional issues that are key to sustainable development,
but missed by current frameworks.
Kharlamov Alexander A., Parry Glenn (2019) Limited evidence for servitization in UK Publishing: an empirical analysis, International Journal of Business Environment Inderscience Enterprises
Servitization is a strategic transition of firms towards the creation of additional value through services. In this study we adopt a data-driven approach and assume that company activity descriptions are representative of their activity and partly reflect the adopted strategy. We hypothesise that if there is a trend of traditional publishing firms adopting servitization strategies, this should emerge from textual analysis of company descriptors. Relying on data-driven analysis of publicly available company information for UK and Ireland, we find no significant evidence of strategic diversity as a single group emerges from diverse clustering methods. Our results show either that the publicly available dataset is not representative of the publishing strategy in industry or that there is no real evidence of servitization in the publishing sector. Implications for theory and for industry are discussed.
Herrero Ferran Vendrell, Parry Glenn, Basáez Marco Opazo, Montesinos Francisco J. Sanchez (2018) Does business model experimentation in dynamic contexts enhance value capture?, International Journal of Business Environment 10 (1) pp. 14-34 Inderscience Enterprises
DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2018.093301
Established theory suggests that firms experiment with business models in dynamic contexts. However, the relationship between business model experimentation and organisational performance remains unclear. For this purpose, we propose an assessment of the economic value of business model experimentation in dynamic contexts by defining the unit of analysis at the industry level. Analysis draws upon a unique panel dataset from the recorded music industry composed of 414 observations from 32 countries for the period 1998-2010. The results show two optimal modes for maximising value capture in dynamic contexts. First, if a dominant format exists, a 'network' effect becomes prevalent which has a positive impact upon revenue. Second, when firms engage in experimentation leading to a highly diversified set of business models the industry sector becomes better able to capture value from diverse and changing consumer needs.
Del Vecchio Marco, Kharlamov Alexander A., Parry Glenn, Pogrebna Ganna (2020) Improving Productivity in Hollywood with Data Science: Using Emotional Arcs of Movies to Drive Product and Service Innovation in Entertainment Industries., Journal of the Operational Research Society Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01605682.2019.1705194
Improving productivity in the entertainment industry is a very challenging task as it heavily depends on generating attractive content for the consumers. The consumer-centric design (putting the consumers at the centre of the content development and production) focuses on ways in which businesses can design customized services and products which accurately reflect consumer preferences. We propose a new framework which allows to use data science to optimize content-generation in entertainment and test this framework for the motion picture industry. We use the natural language processing methodology combined with econometric analysis to explore whether and to what extent emotions shape consumer preferences for media and entertainment content, which, in turn, affect revenue streams. By analyzing 6,174 movie scripts, we generate the emotional trajectory of each motion picture. We then combine the obtained mappings into clusters which represent groupings of consumer emotional journeys. These clusters are then plugged into an econometric model to predict overall success parameters of the movies including box office revenues, viewer satisfaction levels (captured by IMDb ratings), awards, as well as the number of viewers? and critics? reviews. We find that emotional arcs in movies can be partitioned into 6 basic shapes. The highest box offices are associated with the Man in a Hole shape which is characterized by an emotional fall followed by an emotional rise. This U-shaped emotional arc results in financially successful movies irrespective of genre and production budget. Implications of this analysis for generating on-demand content and improving productivity in entertainment industries are discussed.
Vendrell-Herrero Ferran, Gomes Emanuel, Collinson Simon, Parry Glenn, Bustinza Oscar.F. (2018) Selling digital services abroad: How do extrinsic attributes influence foreign consumers' purchase intentions?, International Business Review 27 (1) pp. 173-185 Elsevier Ltd
DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2017.06.003
This article investigates, through the country-of-origin effect and value-in-use lenses, how the implementation of digital services creates opportunities for cultural industries to expand internationally. We argue that intrinsic attributes of cultural content such as the capacity to entertain are difficult to parameterize because they are somewhat experiential and subjective. This means that extrinsic cues are essential to foreign consumers when making a decision to purchase digital services. We specifically evaluate the influence of Britishness, cultural distance, exoticness, brand image, and flag-brand congruence on the purchase intentions of consumers in foreign markets. This study employs a unique consumer dataset with information on the internationalization of British cultural digital services. The depth and breadth of the survey data collected through collaboration with a UK media industry partner with a globally recognised brand is significantly richer than data used in previous studies. In particular, the study exploits a survey with 5,200 usable data points from consumers residing in fourteen geographically dispersed countries. Findings support theoretical predictions that Britishness, cultural distance, exoticness, brand image and flag-brand congruence are positively linked to the purchasing decisions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Parry Glenn, Pogrebna G., Vendrell-Herrero F. (2018) Windowing television content: Lessons for digital business models, Strategic Change 27 (2) pp. 151-160 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2190
There is a market for successful distribution of television content using a Windowing strategy. This article investigates if a strategy where content is made available to consumers through different channels over time, a "Windowing" business models, is appropriate for releasing television programs. By initially exposing consumers to a controlled quantity of free content greater value can be captured at later stages as 55% of these consumers are 13-20% more likely to become paying subscribers.
Kharlamov A., Parry Glenn (2018) Advanced supply chains: Visibility, blockchain and human behaviour, In: Carrizo Moreira António, Ferreira Luís Miguel D. F., Zimmermann Ricardo A. (eds.), Innovation and Supply Chain Management - Relationship, Collaboration and Strategies Contributions to Management Science pp. 321-343 Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-74304-2_15
Technological advances over the last decade saw the rise of ICT and IoT, paving the way for the Supply Chain of Things. Blockchain technology was one of the most recent and potentially most significant developments. Blockchain technology are secure by design and can enable decentralization and visibility, with application in cryptocurrency transactions, historical records, identity management, traceability, authentication, and many others. However, successful adoption of such technology requires that the people, process and technology are ready. We propose a conceptual framework where the concept and technology can balance between positive and negative manifestations depending on human behavior, therefore determining the success of Blockchain technology application in supply chains. While both the concept and technology are relatively ready, human behavior is a challenge as it is known that people suffer from habits and perform poorly when exposed to large volumes of data. Therefore, the development of advanced supply chains with much greater visibility enabled by Blockchain technology must take into consideration people in order to succeed.
Vendrell-Herrero F., Parry Glenn, Bustinza O.F., Gomes E. (2018) Digital business models: Taxonomy and future research avenues, Strategic Change 27 (2) pp. 87-90 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2183
Digital technologies reshape the competitive landscape as firms develop new means of value creation, delivery, and capture. The implementation and suitability of digital business models depend largely on the resources of incumbent firms and new entrants and on the firm positioning in the supply chain. The effect of digital business models is context specific and hence insights from a wide range of industries are included here; among them retailing, manufacturing, Internet, health, and television broadcasting. The maximization of revenues through customer engagement and the reduction of costs are often the main drivers for digital business model adoption.
Adams R., Kewell B., Parry Glenn (2018) Blockchain for Good? Digital Ledger Technology and Sustainable Development Goals, In: Leal Filho Walter, Marans Robert W., Callewaert John (eds.), Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research World Sustainability Series pp. 127-140 Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_7
Blockchain technology (aka Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT) is a novel configuration of Peer-to-Peer, cryptographic and distributed computing technologies that have the potential to shift the internet from an internet of information to an internet of value network, with significant disruptive potential. To date, the cryptocurrency 'bitcoin' is the application of DLT that has attracted most attention, not all of it favourable. However, DLTs are about much more than cryptocurrencies and, as Kranzberg's (1986) first law of technology, that 'Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral' reminds us, we can ethically frame applications of new technologies. To date, research has tended to focus on the technical characteristics of DLTs, and there has been little reflection on potential socially and environmentally beneficial use cases: Blockchain for Good (B4G). The aim of this this exploratory and descriptive paper is to reflect on innovative B4G applications that could help deliver socially and environmentally beneficial outcomes, framed in terms of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, through challenging existing business models and providing new opportunities for value creation.
Loonam J., Eaves S., Kumar V., Parry Glenn (2018) Towards digital transformation: Lessons learned from traditional organizations, Strategic Change 27 (2) pp. 101-109 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2185
Digitally enabled organizations are supported by new information and communication technologies, referred to as digital technologies, which increasingly promise enormous opportunities for growth. The study reviews 10 case studies from the literature and analysis the approaches these organizations have taken to successfully implement digital technologies. The findings reveal a conceptual framework that seeks to support management in understanding the actions required to implement digital transformation.
Parry Glenn (2018) Enterprise imaging: Picturing the service-value system, In: Kohtamäki Marko, Baines Tim, Rabetino Rodrigo, Bigdeli Ali Z. (eds.), Practices and Tools for Servitization: Managing Service Transition pp. 343-361 Springer International Publishing
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-76517-4_19
Service value is realized within the interaction of client and provider, and the Enterprise Image (EI) creates a picture of a moment in time of the working relationship. The EI focuses on a contractual relationship between two parties and identifies the resources used and who controls them. The resources included in the image are those that are required to achieve the outcome desired from a client/provider interaction. The approach has been applied to many different operations, for example, service maintenance, product provision, and consulting. EIs have proven useful in management decision making, service development, communication, and understanding complex enterprises.
Rogerson Michael, Parry Glenn (2020) Blockchain: case studies in food supply chain visibility, Supply Chain Management 25 (5) pp. 601-614 Emerald
DOI: 10.1108/SCM-08-2019-0300
Purpose:

This paper investigates how blockchain has moved beyond cryptocurrencies and is being deployed to enhance visibility and trust in supply chains; its limitations, and potential impact.

Approach:

Qualitative analysis undertaken via case studies drawn from food companies using semi-structured interviews.

Findings:

Blockchain is demonstrated as an enabler of visibility in supply chains. Applications at scale are most likely for products where the end consumer is prepared to pay the premium currently required to fund the technology, e.g. baby food. Challenges remain in four areas: trust of the technology; human error and fraud at the boundaries; governance; consumer data access and willingness to pay.

Research implications and limitations:

The paper shows that blockchain can be utilised as part of a system generating visibility and trust in supply chains. Research directs academic attention to issues that remain to be addressed. The challenges pertaining to the technology itself we believe to be generalisable; those specific to the food industry may not hold elsewhere.

Practical implications:

From live case studies we provide empirical evidence that blockchain provides visibility of exchanges and reliable data in fully-digitised supply chains. This provides provenance and guards against counterfeit goods. However, firms will need to work to gain consumer buy-in for the technology following repeated past claims of trustworthiness.

Originality:

This paper provides primary evidence from blockchain use cases ?in the wild?. The exploratory case studies examine application of blockchain for supply chain visibility.

Davies Philip, Parry Glenn, Alves Kyle, Ng Irene (2020) How additive manufacturing allows products to absorb variety in use: empirical evidence from the defensive industry, Production Planning & Control Taylor and Francis
The operations and supply chain management the normative assumption holds that a product?s structural and functional elements are fixed pre-production to support efficiency of operations. Firms moving from manufacturing to service are faced with delivering resource for customers in context and absorbing variety in use provides them with a number of challenges. This paper examines AM as a technology that efficiently provides high variety that meets emergent user demand. A single case study is undertaken, drawing upon design change data and in-depth interviews with industry experts. Findings show that in non-digitised environments, introducing design changes to modular products through life creates complexity, where complexity refers to increasing interdependencies between components in the product architecture that lead to increased coordination costs between internal and external supply chains. We find that advances in AM can act as a supply chain solution, managing complexity and allowing products and supply chains to efficiently and effectively adapt close to context of use. Findings suggest that existing theory must expand beyond the normative assumption that the physical product is fixed and the intangible service elements adapt to absorb variety, to include cases where the tangible product can absorb variety to meet emergent need.
McConaghy Masha, McMullen Greg, Parry Glenn, McConaghy Trent, Holtzman David (2017) Visibility and digital art: Blockchain as an ownership layer on the Internet, Strategic Change 26 (5) pp. 461-470 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2146
Visibility of digital art and its ownership can be achieved using blockchain technology as part of a broader solution for the identification, attribution, and payment for digital work. A case study is provided of a firm using the Bitcoin blockchain as part of an integrated solution to identify and authenticate ownership of digital property. An integrated ownership ledger allows for secure attribution, transfer, and provenance of digital property. Blockchain technology enables limited-edition digital property, while Internet-scale web crawl and machine learning shows where and how works are being used on the Internet.
Kamp Bart, Parry Glenn (2017) Servitization and advanced business services as levers for competitiveness, Industrial Marketing Management 60 pp. 11-16 Elsevier Inc.
DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.12.008
Settanni Ettore, Thenent Nils Elias, Newnes Linda B., Parry Glenn, Goh Yee Mey (2017) Mapping a product-service-system delivering defence avionics availability, International Journal of Production Economics 186 pp. 21-32 Elsevier B.V.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.01.018
Long-term support agreements such as availability-based contracts are often associated with the servitization of business models in such sectors as defence aerospace. In practice, there is no unambiguous way of linking availability and service outcomes from an operational perspective; rather, the focus tends to be placed almost exclusively on product-related metrics. To address this gap, this paper outlines a conceptual model of how advanced service outcomes should be delivered under an availability-based contract for defence avionics. The model is grounded on empirical evidence gathered through an in-depth case study in the UK defence sector. The research is one of the first attempts to shift the focus away from a notion of availability as a property designed into a piece of equipment, and to detect its emergence from the interactions between relevant socio-technical elements within the underpinning advanced service delivery system, or Product-Service-System (PSS), identified by analysis of empirical data. This research provides insights into where action should be taken within a PSS that would be difficult to obtain from the analysis of field reliability data alone. It also provides a conceptual model that can assist the formulation of scientific models based on quantitative data such as multi-echelon inventory systems for repairable items. While the transferability of the findings is limited by the specificity of the case, a detailed description is provided to facilitate comparison with other cases.
Kharlamov Alexander, Parry Glenn (2020) The impact of servitization and digitization
on productivity and profitability of the firm: a
systematic approach, Production, Planning and Control Taylor and Francis
We propose a new systematic method to answer the research question: ?What is the financial and economic
impact of servitizing the firm, digitising the firm, and combined servitization and digitization
strategy?? Our method quantifies servitization, digitization and their synergy by analysing their relationship with firm financial and economic outcomes. The method is applied to the British publishing
industry. Using text-mining and econometric analysis of secondary data, 258 UK book publishers (93%
of the market share) are analysed over a period of 10 years (1,508 observations). Firms are categorised
as servitized (S-firms), digitized (D-firms), digitized and servitized (DS-firms) and pure (P-firms) that are
neither servitized nor digitized (control group). We detect no significant difference in terms of productivity
and profitability between P-firms and D-firms. Although we find evidence of a servitization paradox,
both S-firms and DS-firms show greater productivity than P-firms. Profitability of DS-firms is
greater than that of P-firms, but profitability of S-firms is lower than that of P-firms. The research
improves on the existing methodology employed to examine the impact of servitizing or digitising
the firm and provides a means to measure how servitization and digitization impact on the productivity
and profitability of a firm within a specific context.
Vendrell-Herrero Ferran, Bustinza Oscar F., Parry Glenn, Georgantzis Nikos (2017) Servitization, digitization and supply chain interdependency, Industrial Marketing Management 60 pp. 69-81 Elsevier Inc.
DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.06.013
This study draws on literature at the intersection of servitization, digital business models and supply chain management. Work empirically explores how digital disruption has affected Business-to-Business (B2B) interdependencies. Dematerialization of physical products is transforming the way firms are positioned in the supply chain due to a reduction in production and transport costs and the different ways business engage with customers. Specifically, we propose that these new market conditions can empower downstream firms. We further propose that upstream firms can still capture additional value through digital service if their servitized offer includes difficult to imitate elements. The context of the analysis is the publishing industry. The Payment Card method employed is used to test UK and US consumer's perceptions of digital formats (eBooks) and assess their willingness to pay in relation to printed formats. The method undertaken enables us to elicit aggregated consumer demand for eBooks which in turn identifies optimal pricing strategies for the digital services. Analysis demonstrates that during digital servitization upstream firms should seek to deploy unique resources to ensure their strategic position in the supply chain is not diminished.
Adams Richard, Parry Glenn, Godsiff Phil, Ward Peter (2017) The future of money and further applications of the blockchain, Strategic Change 26 (5) pp. 417-422 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2141
Blockchain technology provides an exciting application space for innovation in diverse domains but threatens disintermediation for organizations providing a trusted and auditable account of ownership and transactions. It needs, however, an appropriate regulation to keep pace with technological developments. Technology remains very young, akin to the Internet in the early 1990s. Use cases, practical demonstrators, standards, and lexical consistency are urgently required.
Kewell Beth, Adams Richard, Parry Glenn (2017) Blockchain for good?, Strategic Change 26 (5) pp. 429-437 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2143
The blockchain innovation appears to represent viable catalysts for achieving global sustainable development targets. Projects and initiatives seeking to extend the reach of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) seem mostly intended for the benefit of for-profit businesses, governments, and consumers. DLT projects devised for the public good could aim, in theory, to fulfill the United Nation's current sustainable development goals. Blockchain technology is being applied in ways that could transform this ambition for good into a practical reality.
Kowalkowski Christian, Gebauer Heiko, Kamp Bart, Parry Glenn (2017) Servitization and deservitization: Overview, concepts, and definitions, Industrial Marketing Management 60 pp. 4-10 Elsevier Inc.
DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.12.007
The topic of servitization has generated a considerable body of research and many conferences, as well as industry engagement. Yet, despite the extensive literature associated with this now-mature discipline, there is no broad-based consensus on the core concepts and definitions deployed by servitization scholars, and both terminology and usage often seem ambiguous. This paper examines challenges related to service growth strategies, as well as strategies involving deservitization or a retreat from service offerings. Showing that these strategies have been pursued for more than fifty years, clarification is sought here by framing the corresponding processes and proposing definitions for four core terms: servitization, service infusion, deservitization and service dilution. It becomes clear that in focusing on the organizational change entailed by these processes, future research must elucidate 'softer' issues such as leadership and business logic.
Davies P., Parry Glenn, Alves K. Updating the General Modular Systems Theory: Evidence from Servitization, Servitization 2019: 8th International Conference on Business Servitization (ICBS 2019)
This paper examines innovation in product-service systems. Using the lens of the general modular systems theory (Schilling, 2000), the research examines the factors that influence whether a product-service system would benefit from an increasingly modular, or an increasingly synergistic specific (or integrated) state in a servitized context. The paper presents results from an in-depth case study of an OEM of military vehicles. The OEM provided design services to reconfigure military vehicles based on the requirements of the end-user (military personnel), and were based on real-time need from active overseas engagements. The research design uses a mixed-methods approach. Given modularity is a directly observable configuration of structure, design structure matrices (DSMs) were used to inspect the modular structure of vehicles each time a customer-requested design change was integrated. To supplement the DSMs, thematic analysis was conducted on 29 in-depth interviews with the organisation?s employees, as well as on texts, documents and secondary data. In applying the general modular systems theory to the context of an outcome-based product-service system, the research finds four additional factors that push a system toward or away from modularity. These factors arise from the diversity of the customers? use-contexts that were not included in the original Schilling (2000) framework. These factors include requirements based on contextual variety, emergence, actor agency, urgency in use. The paper contributes to the innovation management and service modularity literature by updating and refining the general modular systems theory, and provides guidance to managers when designing and innovating outcome-based product-service systems.

Additional publications