Sustainable business models in SMEs: The customer’s perspective

The main purpose of the study is to identify the relationship between sustainability goals and measures of the degree of sustainable policy implementation, as well as the customer perspective as determined by the business model (BM) template of A. Osterwalder and Y. Pigneur. In the conducted research, the customer perspective takes into account five elements of the BM and each element was examined by several characteristics. The elements of the BM from the customer perspective are: customer segment, value proposition, distribution channels, customer relationships, and revenue. The study used the authors’ survey questionnaire, in which respondents, who were enterprises in the SME sector, answered questions about their own BM divided into three layers – business, social, and environmental. The results were statistically analysed using SPSS STATISTIC 28 software and a logit model was developed to verify the significance of the relationship between the binary variables studied. 303 enterprises participated in the survey, 59% of which were enterprises guided by sustainability goals (SGs) in their BMs. However, only 27% of those surveyed had measures of the degree of sustainable policy implementation. The conducted research confirmed that acting in accordance with SGs is strongly related to customer-oriented elements of the business model, such as (1) customer segregation by sex or by level of environmental awareness, (2) value proposition – an environmental orientation, (3) distri- bution channels – direct sales online, (4) customer relationships through dedicated personal assistance or automated service based on personal customer profiles, (5) revenue – sales of products and services. Slightly different results were obtained for using measures of the degree of the SD policy implementation, where the highest correlation occurred for: (1) main customers – manufacturing entrepreneurs, (2) customer segregation by end-user experience or by level of involvement in socially important issues, (3) value proposition – strengthening democracy, (4) distribution channels – wholesale stores are run by partners, (5) customer relationships through self-service or automated service based on personal customer profiles or involving customers in the product development process, (6) revenue – rental/lease/leasing or licenses.