Customer solutions – new sources of sustainable competitive advantage in times of global economic crisis

The global economic crisis changed the competition game in any marketplace. Faced with increasing competition, declining margins or decreasing demand due to crisis, the firms are looking for new ways to compete at global level. Considering Peter Drucker’s argument that the reason the firms exist is to satisfy the customer, they are trying to differentiate themselves by moving their focus from simple stand-alone products and/or services and instead developing customer solutions. They are defined in the extant literature as a combination of goods and services designed to satisfy a customer’s business needs and therefore they are difficult to imitate and thus they have the potential to be used as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Much more, firms are facing a demand change from their customers as a response to address new business requirements imposed by the economic crisis. But the shift towards developing, selling and implementing customer solutions is not an easy journey. The firms have to transform many aspects of their business. The question that arises is what are the major challenges firms are facing in creating effective customer solutions to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and how they could address these challenges.