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Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 with all of them. Therefore, we started using co-‐creation”. “It is also turned out to be a very good way to receive confirmation from customers about taking the right direction – or not. It allows us to fine-‐tune our services, which is highly valuable”, the product manager adds. Company E built an online platform that is open to any of its customers where they can post their own ideas and share their experiences with other participants and with the employees of Company E. In addition, Company E also posts questions relating to several themes on the platform, asking the opinion of their customers. . “However”, the online marketeer says, “we are going to change this for the coming year. We now have a relatively open platform, where we as employees are always active, and we noticed that we cannot handle all the input. It simply takes too much time to answer all the questions we are receiving now. We are therefore going to change this by setting a new theme each month or quarter with the start of the new year.” Involvement of internal and external parties “Introducing the platform was not all that troubling, from an organizational perspective”, the product manager tells. “But the follow up, the internal organization of the project, that is difficult. How do you keep everyone who participates motivated? How do we make sure that everybody keeps giving useful answers, how do we set the right themes and stories? That’s quite a challenge…” Company E now has about 30 to 35 employees from multiple departments that are involved in the co-‐creation project. The platform’s team consists of people that are descent from the marketing department, people from customer care, their helpdesk, public affairs and people from the technical staff. The product manager and the online marketeer who were interviewed for this research indicate that they are the two persons who are in the lead of the project. “We don’t do it on a fulltime basis, but we do notice that we are short on staff”. This shortage on staff came unexpected, according to both participants. A moderator on the platform decides what questions go to which department. No real changes had to be made as a result of co-‐creation between the departments. “Our internal communication was already above average, and it might have got even slightly better. But it’s too much to call that a direct result of co-‐creation. […] There were no rigorous changes as a result of co-‐creation. There has been a growing number of cooperation between departments, but I think that is simply our culture and the structure of our organization” the product manager explains. Company E holds a weekly meeting for the employees that are directly involved in the co-‐creation project to discuss its progress. Considering the parties that were involved externally, these are all Company E’s consumers – no selection was made here. Used types of co-‐creation The interviewees said to use only one of the four types of co-‐creation: ‘Crowd of People’. In a period of about two years, Company E prepared itself for co-‐creating with its customers by building an online platform. The platform is open to any of its customers, a product manager explains: “We started by sending 50.000 of our clients a postcard, asking them if they wanted to join us to think about our products and ways to improve our service -‐ about 2200 joined the platform, and each week we have about 40 new participants who join us.” 51
Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 Although the platform was open to every customer of Company E, the ownership of the results was directed immediately to the organization itself. Participants of the platform knew that they would not receive any direct reward for their efforts, but the interviewees felt that it was sometimes difficult to explain to customers that not every idea that was put on the platform, was also going to be realized: “They often think that when we’ve said to bring one of the ideas to life, it will be working within a week, or within a few months. That is not always possible, and that is sometimes hard to explain”. Figure 4.9 summarizes the results of this section. Figure 4.9 | Company E: purpose, scope, involved parties and types of co-creation Openness Crowd of People: Purpose: Testing new and existing services/ generating new ideas Scope: Fixed/open Internal: Marketing, customer care, helpdesk, public affairs, technical staff External: All customers Community of Kindred Spirits: not used Club of Experts: not used Coalition of Parties: not used Ownership Co-‐creation in the NPD-‐process Company E introduced the platform they use for the purpose of reestablishing the involvedness and contact with their customers, to improve existing products/services and to generate new ones. Considering the NPD-process, two phases can be identified where co-‐creation contributes to Company E’s purposes. First, it can be used during the phase of idea generation: new ideas can easily be brought under the attention of Company E’s employees, and can at the same time be discussed by participants on the platform. Second, the platform can also be used during the development phase to test new and existing propositions. There are multiple criteria that are used to select ideas that are a result of co-‐creation. A selection of these criteria is provided by the online marketeer: the fit with Company E, the number of customers that will use it, the match with the company’s core values and what the expected returns will be. Next, an important criterion is the available capacity inside the organization, or in other words: are there people enough to realize the idea. ”I think that if you are seriously setting up a co-‐creation platform, that you should sell ‘no’ to sixty to seventy percent of the ideas. Just because of the simple fact that customers are highly demanding, and also expect things to be customized to their needs”. Finally, as already mentioned at the measurement of results-‐section, ideas are discussed with the management team; that is the moment where the decision is made to continue with an idea or not. 52
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