A fundamental shift is underway that will change how we conceive of value. In an era of increasing interconnectedness, individuals, as opposed to institutions, stand at the center of value creation. To adapt to this tectonic shift, organizations can no longer unilaterally devise products and services. They must engage stakeholders—from customers and employees to suppliers, partners, and citizens at large—as co-creators. Co-creation guru Venkat Ramaswamy and Kerimcan Ozcan call for enterprises to be mindful of lived experiences, to build engagement platforms and management systems that are designed for creative collaboration, and to develop "win more-win more" strategies that enhance our wealth, welfare, and, well-being. Richly illustrated with examples of co-creation in action, The Co-Creation Paradigm provides a blueprint for the co-creative enterprise, economy, and society, while presenting a conceptual framework that will guide organizations across sectors in adopting this transformational approach. Challenging some of our most deeply held ideas about business and value, this book outlines the future of "business as usual."
Apple embraced co-creation to enhance the speed and scope of its innovation, generating over $1 billion for its App-Store partner-developers in two years, even as it overtook Microsoft in market value. Starbucks launched its online platform MyStarbucksIdea.com to tap into ideas from customers and turbocharged a turnaround. Unilever turned to co-creation for redesigning product lines such as Sunsilk shampoo and revitalized growth. Nike achieved remarkable success with its Nike+ co-creation initiative, which enables a community of over a million runners to interact with one another and the company, increasing its market share by 10 percent in the first year. Co-creation involves redefining the way organizations engage individuals—customers, employees, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders—bringing them into the process of value creation and engaging them in enriched experiences, in order to —formulate new breakthrough strategies —design compelling new products and services —transform management processes —lower risks and costs —increase market share, loyalty, and returns In this pathbreaking book, Venkat Ramaswamy (who coined the term co-creation with C. K. Prahalad) and Francis Gouillart, pioneers in working with companies to develop co-creation practices, show how every organization—from large corporation to small firm, and government agency to not-for-profit—can achieve “win more–win more” results with these methods. Based on extraordinary research and the authors’ hands-on experiences with successful projects in co-creation at dozens of the world’s most exciting organizations, The Power of Co-Creation illustrates with detailed examples from leading firms such as those above, as well as from Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Amazon, Jabil, Predica, Wacoal, Caja Navarra, and many others, how enterprises have used a wide range of “engagement platforms”—and how they have even restructured internal management processes—in order to harness the power of co-creation. As the authors’ wealth of examples make vividly clear, enterprises can no longer afford to view customers and other stakeholders as passive recipients of their products and services but must learn to engage them in defining and delivering enhanced value. Co-creation goes beyond the conventional “process view” of quality, re-engineering, and lean thinking, and is the essential new mind-set and practice for boosting sustainable growth, productivity, and profits in the future.
In this visionary book, C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy explore why, despite unbounded opportunities for innovation, companies still can't satisfy customers and sustain profitable growth. The explanation for this apparent paradox lies in recognizing the structural changes brought about by the convergence of industries and technologies; ubiquitous connectivity and globalization; and, as a consequence, the evolving role of the consumer from passive recipient to active co-creator of value. Managers need a new framework for value creation. Increasingly, individual customers interact with a network of firms and consumer communities to co-create value. No longer can firms autonomously create value. Neither is value embedded in products and services per se. Products are but an artifact around which compelling individual experiences are created. As a result, the focus of innovation will shift from products and services to experience environments that individuals can interact with to co-construct their own experiences. These personalized co-creation experiences are the source of unique value for consumers and companies alike. In this emerging opportunity space, companies must build new strategic capital—a new theory on how to compete. This book presents a detailed view of the new functional, organizational, infrastructure, and governance capabilities that will be required for competing on experiences and co-creating unique value.
Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable, networked, and vocal. For them consumption is not merely an act of buying products and services, but an expression of their creative potential. Consequently, they are demanding a say and a voice in how companies conceive, develop, and deliver value to them. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear that a large number of companies are transforming how they innovate—not only in terms of developing new products and services, but in how they are created, delivered, and supported to customers. Open Innovation thinking, where companies collaborate with suppliers, distributors, and customers to co-create unique value, is fast replacing traditional thinking that viewed innovation as a proprietary activity and marketing as a static, one-way broadcast. However, while there is significant advocacy and buy-in for collaborating with customers, there is little guidance for companies on how to undertake the journey from applause and appreciation to execution. Only reading about others’ success stories – Nike, Hallmark, P&G, Mozilla, etc. – is not sufficient for helping a company develop a blueprint for themselves. In Customer Driven Innovation, strategy and branding consultant Gaurav Bhalla presents a concrete framework to help companies systematically and effectively design and implement collaborative innovation programs with their customers that can be applied in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts. The authors describe how today’s technologies allow companies to create dynamic dialogues with their customers through shared networks, virtual marketing techniques, and blogs to develop deeper relationships that reinforce brand loyalty and ultimately drive growth. They challenge traditional approaches to market research that measure "customer satisfaction" from a rear-window perspective, and help companies and their customers look forward instead.P>
When BIC, manufacturer of disposable ballpoint pens, wanted to grow, it looked for an idea beyond introducing new sizes and ink colors. Someone suggested lighters. LIGHTERS? With an idea that seemed crazy at first, that bright executive, instead of seeing BIC as a pen company—a business in the PEN “box”—figured out that there was growth to be found in the DISPOSABLE “box.” And he was right. Now there are disposable BIC lighters, razors, even phones. The company opened its door to a host of opportunities. IT INVENTED A NEW BOX. Your business can, too. And simply thinking “out of the box” is not the answer. True ingenuity needs structure, hard analysis, and bold brainstorming. It needs to start THINKING IN NEW BOXES —a revolutionary process for sustainable creativity from two strategic innovation experts from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). To make sense of the world, we all rely on assumptions, on models—on what Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny call “boxes.” If we are unaware of our boxes, they can blind us to risks and opportunities. This innovative book challenges everything you thought you knew about business creativity by breaking creativity down into five steps: • Doubt everything. Challenge your current perspectives. • Probe the possible. Explore options around you. • Diverge. Generate many new and exciting ideas, even if they seem absurd. • Converge. Evaluate and select the ideas that will drive breakthrough results. • Reevaluate. Relentlessly. No idea is a good idea forever. And did we mention Reevaluate? Relentlessly. Creativity is paramount if you are to thrive in a time of accelerating change. Replete with practical and potent creativity tools, and featuring fascinating case studies from BIC to Ford to Trader Joe’s, Thinking in New Boxes will help you and your company overcome missed opportunities and stay ahead of the curve. This book isn’t a simpleminded checklist. This is Thinking in New Boxes. And it will be fun. (We promise.) Praise for Thinking in New Boxes “Excellent . . . While focusing on business creativity, the principles in this book apply anywhere change is needed and will be of interest to anyone seeking to reinvent herself.”—Blogcritics “Thinking in New Boxes is a five-step guide that leverages the authors’ deep understanding of human nature to enable readers to overcome their limitations and both imagine and create their own futures. This book is a must-read for people living and working in today’s competitive environment.”—Ray O. Johnson, Ph.D., chief technology officer, Lockheed Martin “Thinking In New Boxes discusses what I believe to be one of the fundamental shifts all companies/brands need to be thinking about: how to think creatively, in order to innovate and differentiate our brands. We need to thrive and lead in a world of accelerating change and this book challenges us to even greater creativity in our thinking. One of the best business books I’ve read in a long time.”—Jennifer Fox, CEO, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts “As impressive as teaching new tricks to old dogs, Thinking in New Boxes is both inspirational and practical—a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to sharpening one’s wits in order to harness creativity in the workplace.”—Peter Gelb, general manager, Metropolitan Opera
This book is published under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. The editors present essential methods and tools to support a holistic approach to the challenge of system upgrades and innovation in the context of high-value products and services. The approach presented here is based on three main pillars: an adaptation mechanism based on a broad understanding of system dependencies; efficient use of system knowledge through involvement of actors throughout the process; and technological solutions to enable efficient actor communication and information handling. The book provides readers with a better understanding of the factors that influence decisions, and put forward solutions to facilitate the rapid adaptation to changes in the business environment and customer needs through intelligent upgrade interventions. Further, it examines a number of sample cases from various contexts including car manufacturing, utilities, shipping and the furniture industry. The book offers a valuable resource for both academics and practitioners interested in the upgrading of capital-intensive products and services. “The work performed in the project “Use-It-Wisely (UiW)” significantly contributes towards a collaborative way of working. Moreover, it offers comprehensive system modelling to identify business opportunities and develop technical solutions within industrial value networks. The developed UiW-framework fills a void and offers a great opportunity. The naval construction sector of small passenger vessels, for instance, is one industry that can benefit.” Nikitas Nikitakos, Professor at University of the Aegean, Department of Shipping, Trade, and Transport, Greece. “Long-life assets are crucial for both the future competiveness and sustainability of society. Make wrong choices now and you are locked into a wrong system for a long time. Make the right choices now and society can prosper. This book gives important information about how manufacturers can make right choices.” Arnold Tukker, Scientific director, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, and senior scientist, TNO.
William DugganÕs 2007 book, Strategic Intuition, showed how innovation really happens in business and other fields and how that matches what modern neuroscience tells us about how creative ideas form in the human mind. In his new book, Creative Strategy, Duggan offers a step-by-step guide to help individuals and organizations put that same method to work for their own innovations. DugganÕs book solves the most important problem of how innovation actually happens. Other methods of creativity, strategy, and innovation explain how to research and analyze a situation, but they donÕt guide toward the next step: developing a creative idea for what to do. Or they rely on the magic of ÒbrainstormingÓÑjust tossing out ideas. Instead, Duggan shows how creative strategy follows the natural three-step method of the human brain: breaking down a problem into parts and then searching for past examples to create a new combination to solve the problem. ThatÕs how innovation really happens. Duggan explains how to follow these three steps to innovate in business and any other field as an individual, a team, or a whole company. The crucial middle stepÑthe search for past examplesÑtakes readers beyond their own brain to a Òwhat-works scanÓ of what others have done within and outside of the company, industry, and country. It is a global search for good ideas to combine as a new innovation. Duggan illustrates creative strategy through real-world cases of innovation that use the same method: from Netflix to Edison, from Google to Henry Ford. He also shows how to integrate creative strategy into other methods you might currently use, such as PorterÕs Five Forces or Design Thinking. Creative Strategy takes the mystery out of innovation and puts it within your grasp.
Emotional Branding is the best selling revolutionary business book that has created a movement in branding circles by shifting the focus from products to people. The “10 Commandments of Emotional Branding” have become a new benchmark for marketing and creative professionals, emotional branding has become a coined term by many top industry experts to express the new dynamic that exists now between brands and people. The emergence of social media, consumer empowerment and interaction were all clearly predicted in this book 10 years ago around the new concept of a consumer democracy. In this updated edition, Marc Gobé covers how social media helped elect Barack Obama to the White House, how the idea behind Twitter is transforming our civilization, and why new generations are re-inventing business, commerce, and management as we know it by leveraging the power of the web. In studying the role of women as "shoppers in chief, "and defining the need to look at the marketplace by recognizing differences in origins, cultures, and choices, Emotional Branding foresaw the break up of mass media to more targeted and culturally sensitive modes of communications. As the first marketing book ever to study the role of the LGBTQ community as powerful influencers for many brands, Emotional Branding opened the door to a renewed sensitivity toward traditional research that privilege individuality and the power of the margins to be at the center of any marketing strategy. A whole segment in the book looks at the role of the senses in branding and design. The opportunity that exists in understanding how we feel about a brand determines how much we want to buy. By exploring the 5 senses, Emotional Branding shows how some brands have built up their businesses by engaging in a sensory interaction with their consumers. Emotional Branding explores how effective consumer interaction needs to be about senses and feelings, emotions and sentiments. Not unlike the Greek culture that used philosophy, poetry, music, and the art of discussion and debate to stimulate the imagination, the concept of emotional branding establishes the forum in which people can convene and push the limits of their creativity. Through poetry the Greeks invented mathematics, the basis of science, sculpture, and drama. Unless we focus on humanizing the branding process we will lose the powerful emotional connection people have with brands. Critics hailed Emotional Branding as a breakthrough and a fresh approach to building brands. Design in this book is considered a new media, the web a place where people will share information and communicate, architecture a part of the brand building process, and people as the most powerful element of any branding strategy. Most importantly, it emphasizes the need to transcend the traditional language of marketing--from one based on statistics and data to a visually compelling new form of communication that fosters creativity and innovation. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.
We need new governance solutions to help us improve public policies and services, solve complex societal problems, strengthen social communities and reinvigorate democracy. By changing how government engages with citizens and stakeholders, co-creation provides an attractive and feasible approach to governance that goes beyond the triptych of public bureaucracy, private markets and self-organized communities. Inspired by the successful use of co-creation for product and service design, this book outlines a broad vision of co-creation as a strategy of public governance. Through the construction of platforms and arenas to facilitate co-creation, this strategy can empower local communities, enhance broad-based participation, mobilize societal resources and spur public innovation while building ownership for bold solutions to pressing problems and challenges. The book details how to use co-creation to achieve goals. This exciting and innovative study combines theoretical argument with illustrative empirical examples, visionary thinking and practical recommendations.
