From SSKE

They are the two key roles played by Actors in value cocreation processes. The Provider is the Actor (Stakeholder) that provides Service for the benefit of
the Customer, while the Customer is the beneficiary Actor that receives the Service provided. As value co-creator, the Customer may receive and integrate Service from many Providers and supplements them with proprietary resources. We prefer to include the Customer and the Provider as separate entities in the model, even though they reflect basically the different roles of the Actor, because it allows relating specific phenomena to each particular role (e.g. in FP 10, Value is manifested in the Context of the Customer). If we eliminated this categorization, two Actors at least would participate in Value Co-Creation, which is in accordance with S-D logic.