Selling solutions or building partnerships? TechCo’s customer engagement dilemma in public-sector e-health

Why couldn’t a Norwegian e-health firm replicate a successful digital application across two hospitals with similar functional needs? This teaching case follows TechCo, a mid-sized Norwegian e-health provider, as it works with two hospitals on a similar digital blood sampling workflow. Hospital E partnered closely with TechCo to co-develop the system. Hospital W, despite a comparable starting point, chose to develop the system internally. The case invites students to examine how digital service providers engage public-sector customers who hold deep workflow knowledge but rely on external partners for technological depth. As TechCo’s CEO prepared a strategic review, he questioned whether the company’s current way of engaging with customers still fit how public-sector hospitals wanted to work with digital suppliers. Through this contrast, the case asks why customers with similar functional needs may want to engage suppliers in fundamentally different ways, and how a digital service firm should adapt its customer engagement and delivery approach. The case draws on interviews with TechCo employees across organizational levels and with hospital representatives, supplemented by industry reports, tender documents, and company materials.