Differentiating Market Offerings Using Complexity and Co-Creation : Implications for Customer Decision-Making Uncertainty

Customer decision-making uncertainty (DMU) is a persistent phenomenon in business-to-business markets. However, there is substantial variation in the degree customers perceive DMU and hence suppliers should react to it. Based on existing industrial buying typologies, this paper proposes a new classification scheme to explain variance in customer DMU. To this end, market offering complexity and co-creation are used as defining dimensions and four ideal types of industrial market offerings are constructed. We show theoretically that DMU is especially prevalent for complex solutions. The paper closes with guidance for suppliers of industrial market offerings and an outlook for future research