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

Abstract

The competitive market of food and beverage industry makes it difficult for micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) to maintain its business. The development of supermarket industry is expected to boost food and beverage MSMEs competitiveness. Long-run sustainable business performance can be achieved through marketing services that are based on demands and expectations of customers. The customer-centric marketing model focuses on customer solution, customer cost, customer relation, and customer convenience. This research is conducted to study the roles of customer solution, customer cost, customer relation, and customer convenience in developing food and beverage MSMEs’ competitiveness in Surabaya region. This research focuses on Surabaya citizens aged between 15-64 years that have bought packaged food or beverage more than twice from MSMEs in supermarkets that have been established for five years. Data are collected through distributed paper-based questionnaires among respondents. The researcher uses a Five-point Likert Scale to measure the variables and SPSS to analyze the data. The result shows that all customer-centric marketing mix variables, which are customer solution, customer cost, customer relation, and customer convenience have significant influence towards the development of food and beverage MSMEs’ competitiveness in Surabaya.