Value creation by software companies in the business-to-business market

Value creation is of growing importance for marketers and is especially important in business markets, because it leads to customer loyalty, better financial performance and a sustainable advantage for companies and henceforth it is important for businesses to know how they can create value. Although the creation of customer value is usually brought into relationship with products and service, literature has overlooked how value creation in industrial contexts can be assessed from three different yet interrelated points of views: product, service and relationship. However, the manner how value for business customers can be created differs per industry. A market with a growing importance is the IT sector and especially the software part grows substantially. This article assesses value creation by software companies through the mentioned three aspects and provides a guide for software companies which want to generate the highest value for their business customers.