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Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 Whenever Company E adopts an idea it is developed inside the organization. However, the online marketeer adds that this is also an important and distinct part of co-‐creation: “in the most ideal case, we start with an insight, and then we develop a concept around it. Then, we check with customers whether it is something they like, and if necessary, we improve the product or service until it is suitable for release”. Company E appeared to provide their stakeholders with extended feedback. “When co-‐creating with a customer, I also expect that we provide something in return to a customer. Not in the sense of giving presents or something like that, but by providing insights of Company E. […] What we give them in return, is that we provide them with an impression of how our organization works, and most of our customers find this already very valuable […] And we also let them know what happens to their ideas. So it is the fact that customers have a good relationship with our organization, what gives them a good feeling”. There are no financial compensations or whatsoever, and sometimes an answer to an idea might also just mean ‘no’, the online marketeer explains: “We just have to be honest, and I think that is one of the core concepts in co-‐creation: being transparent”. Explaining what ideas are useful and what ideas are less useful appears also to be important. Figure 4.10 illustrates how the platform that is used by Company E contributes in its NPD-‐process. Figure 4.10 | Company E: types of co-creation and purpose in the NPD-process Idea Selection: Management team/ involved employees Themes Crowd of People: Idea Generation Developed internally Crowd of People: Testing/Feedback Idea generation Idea development Idea diffusion Results and measurement The participants honestly indicated that they had expected more concrete results, in terms of ideas they had not thought of themselves at the moment that the project started. This, however, was not the case: there were some new ideas that were the result of co-‐creation, but not as rigorous they would have expected in advance. An online helpdesk chat, adjusted invoices and ideas to reward loyal customers were among the results. On the other hand, they did manage to create a better relationship with the customer, as the product manager explains: “You don’t hear too many people about it, but co-‐creation proved to be a very good PR-‐tool. It improves customer loyalty. Starting by saying, “I want to improve my services”, companies suddenly found themselves improving the relationship with their customers”. The online marketeer also mentioned that although the generated ideas were not revolutionary, and often already discussed in the organization before the co-‐creation project started, co-‐creation helped in giving a higher priority to certain ideas. Looking at the measurement of the returns of co-‐creation, the product manager explained: “We have multiple themes, and customers can introduce their own ideas as well. Once a month, we have a meeting with the management team, where we discuss the best ideas customers provided us with. During that same meeting the decision is made to develop a number of those ideas – or not. So our MT knows every month what ideas 53
Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 are being generated, and what the current situation is. And one thing that also helps is that we have positive results – but the most important thing is that we gain commitment in the MT to continue the project.” He added that it is also possible to build business cases around ideas, but that it takes time to measure these results. For example, the idea of an online helpdesk chat had to be developed, to be implemented, and only after a couple of months, results can be measured by looking at a decrease in traffic of the telephone-‐based helpdesk, the generated costs and accomplished savings. Encountered difficulties using co-‐creation The interviewees indicated three difficulties since Company E has started using co-‐creation. First, it appeared that customers sometimes expect their ideas to get realized right away – something that is not always possible when the people who are dedicated to the development of products and services also have other tasks and priorities. Second, Company E started the project mainly with the purpose of improving their services – but customers often interpret this as that Company E wants them to think of new services: “with this project, we aim at improving our services. Customers mostly want to talk about product development; they want to participate in designing new products, and develop new things. The problem is, that at this moment, we just are not ready to do this yet”, the online marketeer indicates. Although the problems that are stated above should be solvable by improving the communication towards customers, both interviewees also indicate that they simply not have enough people available to moderate all the answers. Available time and commitment are considered crucial for the success of co-‐creation. § 4.2 CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS Using the same constructs as for the within-‐case analysis, a cross-‐case analysis is made involving all five organizations. This paragraph therefore analyzes, describes and interprets both the differences and the shared agreements between organizations in their use of co-‐creation. After a short discussion of the results across the organizations and the results that stand out Purpose and scope of co-‐creation During the within-‐case analysis, almost all organizations were found to have initiated more than one co-creation project; Company E was the only organization that focused on a single co-‐creation project. Two kinds of purposes could be distinguished: overall purposes -‐ such as reestablishing the connection with the consumer or increasing the speed of innovation -‐ and project-‐specific purposes that were of special interest to this research. One of the things that immediately stood out in the collected data is that all the organizations use co-creation – although not always for a primary purpose – for what they refer to as ‘idea generation’. In addition, two organizations used co-‐creation to test new concepts that had been developed inside the organization, and/or to test existing products or services with its target population. Further, co-‐creation is also quite often used by organizations to explore the possibilities for new strategic alliances or partnerships. 54
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