Customer value creation through supply network and relationship management: Participatory research methods in the creation of a practical approach

To be successful, organisations must focus their efforts on what adds value to the customer, and real customer value requires close customer relationships. Customer value is created throughout the supply chain, such that each phase increases or decreases value and individual actors play important roles in customer value creation. Knowing what customers currently value is not sufficient; instead, gaining competitive advantage requires exploring what customers will value in the future. Anticipating future customer values plays an essential role in developing business processes and building optimal network relationships to develop the core capabilities needed to deliver superior value to customers. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the participatory future research methods as a tool for helping companies identify the most relevant future trends and how they will affect future customer value, network decisions and relationships in the business-to-business context.