Paper info

Customer Perceptions of Value and Value Co-Creation in Solution Business

Joona Keranen, Olli Pekkarinen and Ville Ojanen

The paper was published at the 27th IMP-conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2011.

ABSTRACT
Solution business can offer new sources of income for traditional manufacturing companies,
but the business model differs radically from the traditional product-centric view. One of the
key differences to product business is the depth of co-creation between the supplier and the
customer. This co-creation covers the whole customer relationship, starting from the offering
creation and continuing towards the end of the solution lifecycle. The booming academic
interest on solution business has mainly, with a few exceptions, focused on the supplying side
of the dyadic relationship. As customer solutions are co-created, the views and opinions of
customers form a fruitful research topic. The paper concentrates on customer perceptions of
value co-creation and relationship dynamics during the different relational processes in
solution business. The study contributes to the growing solution marketing literature stream
by providing a conceptual model customer co-creation activities in the relational solution
process.