Case Study on Customer Engagement in Co-Creation Process

Abstract

PURPOSE - Technological advantages have changed the dynamics of today’s business environment. The traditional roles of companies and consumers are shifting away towards more connected setting where customers become co-creators and a new source of competence for companies. The basis of value has changed from a company- and product-centric view to co-created experience and due to intensified competition, managers must co-create unique value through personalized interaction. In order to capture competitive advantage during coming years, companies must embrace this new experience-centric view of innovation and harness their customer competence. Many research highlights the importance of engaging customer in the co-creation process, however, there is no explicit instruction of how this should actually be done. For this reason, the primary purpose of this thesis is to understand the relationship between value co-creation and customer engagement and additionally, to define the key components, challenges and learnings derived from the process. METHODOLOGY - This research is an exploratory, qualitative research in nature describing the relationship between co-creation and customer engagement. The methodology for understanding the process is secondary in terms of a literature review followed by a primary research of a single case study design conducted via in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Data will be collected from experts involved in the cocreation field. The objective is to gain more understanding of value co-creation and customer engagement process. FINDINGS - The findings suggest that the key in managing customer engagement in cocreation process is setting frames for innovation, proper expectation management, goal alignment and open communication of these throughout the relationship. Furthermore, a company can increase the customer value by having all the internal processes, frameworks and guidelines in place and to communicate these throughout the organization to support the external interaction and relationship building with customers.