“From Co-Creation to Collaboration: 5 Pillars for Business Success” is a guest blog post by Steven Van Belleghem and Tom De Ruyc. The post discusses their research on structural collaboration between companies and customers.
This trend of crowd innovation with customers is not just a one time event, companies seem to be taking this concept forward. It is an idea that the author thinks should go further than a campaign.
The article illustrates that a small percentage of companies are developing and launching products with the consumer.
In a recent survey, we found that 3 percent of companies have experience with the developing of new products together with consumers. In most cases, this collaboration started as a pilot project. When the project is a great success, collaboration efforts are being intensified. We also saw, that only 8 percent of the companies that are actively co-creating is involving their clients into the launch of a new product. The focus on co-creation is in most cases the developing of new products. But even if consumers are involved in continuing co-creation processes, we can not say that there is a structural collaboration process taking place.
Collaboration with customers seems to be the church that these authors are trying to get companies to attend. Structural collaboration to be specific and they offer some guidance on how to get there.
It is amazing as we read through this that we find that people choice matters, company culture matters and communication and evaluation are imperative. It seems that no matter where your team is, whether it is a collaboration between consumers and brand developers or internal employees, these are the critical elements of success. So a strong team dedicated to structural collaboration may benefit from a team adventure that breaks the ice, opens the communication lines and defines the culture.
Stephanie Ringer, June 7, 2012
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