Chris Lawer

Based on an extensive analysis of the academic co-creation literature and my previous work into market-learning capabilities, in this paper i provide a conceptual framework of processes and capabilities for customer knowledge co-creation.

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I try and shape my thinking and therefore I guess, my definition of co-creation in terms of how the concept can help firms achieve their growth goals through innovating a product or platform into something of more relevance and greater sustainable value to the customer. This in turn will not only help the firm secure organic revenue growth but also, if executed correctly, deliver long-term returns in the form of continuous learning of customer needs, faster iteration towards enhanced value on existing platforms and path evolution towards repeated success at co-creation, which in reality is just a form of innovation.

I am not going to apologise for having a firm-centred view because after all, without the firm's investment in platforms and infrastructure for customers to meet their value-in-use goals, and to meet them in different space-time contexts, then it’s unlikely that, well, customers...

(with Tony Ulwick, Strategyn CEO)

When managed correctly, open, customer-driven innovating firms enjoy competitive advantage arising from a number of sources. These include; better “unlearning” of established assumptions and practices, higher innovation potential and predictability and faster sensing and response to valid and valued customer requirements. Also, customers perceive higher switching costs arising from their own knowledge and emotive investments in the firm which can help with building loyalty. 

The risks of customer involvement

Nevertheless, as firms begin to develop new capabilities for capturing, sharing and applying customer inputs, there are important risks they should be aware of when doing so. These include:

1. Companies may fall in to the trap of...

A perspective of the firm as an autonomous knowledge creator that learns about customers and creates value for them is increasingly redundant. Now, firms are exploring alternative modes and building capabilities to co-create new knowledge and innovate superior and mutual value with their customers.  Such a shift in assumptions about the value of customer-held knowledge has profound repercussions for how companies innovate as well as the nature of value itself. Some even argue that the very locus of innovation is slowly migrating from within to outside corporate boundaries and that this movement demands a new consideration of questions relating to how firms actively access and deploy the knowledge held by customers.

In the following twelve statements, I develop a logic that concludes in a concise definition of “co-creation” and how firms may derive competitive advantage by facilitating co-created value.

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