Customer value creation in B2B relationships: Sawn timber value chain perspective

The ability to facilitate superior customer value creation is critical for firms' long-term success. The topic has been studied extensively in marketing literature, but less consideration has been given to customer orientation and customer value creation in the forestry context. Through 18 qualitative interviews with suppliers and customers in the Finnish sawn timber value chain, sawmills' customer orientation was analyzed. We find that the concept of customer orientation was realized rather narrowly at sawmills and customer orientation appeared as random actions instead of a systematic part of firms' organization culture. Customers' needs are more manifold and extend beyond product characteristics and process efficiency. The main challenge hindering the renewal of product-oriented business models toward service logic and customer orientation seems to be in attitudes and traditions.