Traditional businesses in the sharing economy: Critical success factors and prerequisites

Abstract

The sharing economy emerged as an alternative way to earn or save money during the financial crisis. Customers started to share underused products for a small fee. This trend is projected to grow over the next years. Not only is the market volume rising, but also the customers' willingness to use it. Projections indicate that traditional businesses will lose customers as well as market share. Hence, this paper tries to understand why traditional businesses should consider the sharing economy and intends to find critical success factors, prerequisites, potentials and risks. To achieve these goals, a comprehensive qualitative research approach involving six experts was applied. The results show that being customer-centric and adopting a sharing mindset are examples of CSFs, while an important prerequisite is to understand the customers’ needs and wants. These findings can guide traditional businesses with a B2C business model in the sharing economy as a provider of their products and services.