THE ROLES OF CUSTOMER SOLUTION, CUSTOMER COST, CUSTOMER RELATION , AND CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE IN DEVELOPING FOOD AND BEVERAGE MSMEs’ COMPETITIVENESS IN SURABAYA

Abstract

THE ROLES OF CUSTOMER SOLUTION, CUSTOMER COST,CUSTOMER RELATION, AND CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE INDEVELOPING FOOD AND BEVERAGE MSMEs’ COMPETITIVENESSIN SURABAYA The competitive market offood and beverage industry makes it difficultfor micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) to maintain its business. Thedevelopment of supermarket industry is expected to boost food and beverageMSMEs competitiveness. Long-run sustainable business performance can beachieved through marketing services that are based on demands and expectationsof customers. The customer-centric marketing model focuses on customersolution, customer cost, customer relation, and customer convenience. Thisresearch is conducted to study the roles of customer solution, customer cost,customer relation, and customer convenience in developing food and beverageMSMEs’ competitiveness in Surabaya region. This research focuses on Surabayacitizens aged between 15-64 years that have bought packaged food or beveragemore than twice from MSMEs in supermarkets that have been established for fiveyears. Data are collected through distributed paper-based questionnaires amongrespondents. The researcher usesaFive-point Likert Scale to measure thevariables and SPSS to analyze the data. The result shows that all customer-centricmarketing mix variables, which are customer solution, customer cost, customerrelation, and customer convenience have significant influence towards thedevelopment of food and beverage MSMEs’ competitiveness in Surabaya