The essence of the concept of systemic value is in customer value creation (Bowman and
Ambrosini, 2000; Clulow et al., 2007; Wernerfelt, 1984). In order to beat the competition the
firm has to provide value for its customers, and the value of its offering has to be higher than
that of its competitors in the eyes of the customer (Bowman and Ambrosini, 2000). It thus has
to know what customers need and how to fulfill these needs. Therefore, after successfully
DOI 10.1108/