The emergence of the service economy challenges companies to understand co-creation, as this seems to be a central notion in service marketing and management, service design and service innovation. Additionally, businesses are increasingly interested in developing service operations together with their customers and in order to do this they need to work more closely with them. Furthermore, existing knowledge challenges companies to understand how they can engage with their customers’ value creation and become value co-creators. Reasons for the emergence of co-creation might be the changed business landscape of having services as a dominant factor fostering communication and interaction between companies and customers. Moreover, companies are finding it difficult to keep up with the competition and to meet customer demands through traditional business approaches so co-creation can offer a powerful mindset for businesses to tackle the challenges they face not only today but also in the future. Thus this study seeks to understand co-creation within service marketing and management, service design and service innovation, based on qualitative empirical enquiry into B2B service businesses. The findings of the study indicate that certain characteristics of co-creation are needed in order to co-create and which can create potentiality for strategic thinking. The study contributes to academic knowledge by introducing a co-creation framework: The characteristics of co-creation in the B2B service business. The framework aims to clarify what co-creation is. As a practical implication the study increases the awareness of co-creation and the framework supports companies in adopting a co-creation approach.