An estimation of the demand characteristics has been given in earlier section (5.2 - The B-2-B Demand Characteristics).
Before considering the customer requirements and formulate a production strategy accordingly, Really ApS should identify who the customers are and what position holds the company toward them.
The bargaining power of customers is much related to production strategy as it influences the firms’ product specifications (e.g. Quality) and operational objectives (e.g. cost reduction and prices).

Within a B2b trade process, the customers’ bargaining power is high if and when (FME, Porter's Five Forces: Strategy Skills, 2013):

• The customers are highly concentrated
• There is a high volume of substitute product supplied
• Switching …show more content…
Office furniture – Shelves systems – Kitchen accessories etc.).
Theoretically speaking, taking the size of the industry as a main parameter, Really ApS should not be affected by the buyers influencing the prices and quality of the products (Jobber, 2010).
Nevertheless, Really ApS wish to handle companies positioned at a high-end level, thereby fragmenting the industry into one specific segment of buyers (Interview X). This strategy reduces the scope of key customers: Consequently, the industry is becoming more concentrated.
The decision to be selective is a risk for Really ApS, as a new born company with a pressure to establish operations, it will be difficult to convince their customers to switch to a new material or simply make a new buy.

Innovative and differentiated production outputs is one option to increase a value proposition:
“Innovation is the ability to see connections, to spot opportunities and to take advantage of them” (Tidd & Bessant, 2013).

Larger organizations are dependent to some extent in startups to improve their current product portfolio – “Joint Value” ( Sawhney , Verona, & Prandelli, …show more content…
If the furniture industry is price sensitive, key customers might benchmark Really ApS’ Composite Material against cheaper alternatives: the company will be automatically forced to reduce prices, resulting in a lower operating margin.

Another issue applied to Really ApS is their lack of branding, causing a low market awareness and customers not willing to pay the initial price of the Material Board. Over time, this can be an issue if the company’s objective is to extent their market by targeting new customer segments.

Thus, innovation as a unique selling proposition is not sufficient to avoid high bargaining power. One realistic option to increase Really ApS’ brand identity issue is to involve Kvadrat A/S: as an owner (50% shares) and leading company in Europe, the company should primarily allocate marketing effort to promote Really ApS among their existing network.

Really ApS also states:

« We are very lucky to have a partner such as Kvadrat - they are responsible for the content we have, and also some of our networks. If we did not have them to support us, it would have taken us much more time to get where we are now