Question

Questions

• Choose any two companies to conduct a google search about co-creation approach of these companies to enable “user innovation”.
• Summarize their approach to co-creation of the user.
• Review or Reflect on;
  • What surprised you about user innovation enabling approaches.
  • How will you use this learning experience in your future roles/organizations/own business?

Answer 1

1.Companies : Unilever, IKEA

2. Unilever is a 120+ year old British-dutch MNC that manufactures customer goods. It has over 400+ individual brands that it manufactures and sells worldwide. Its customer base is stated as 2.5 billion people daily. To use this vast resource at its disposal, Unilever launched its 'Open Innovation' platform in 2010 to get feedback and inputs directly from customers. Using this platform, Unilever poses challenges to readers and encourages responses that could be adopted by the company. Topics include everything from packaging to technology. Responses that lead to successful adoption ensure that the submitter is offered a commercial contract and recognition to encourage more innovation and higher quality of responses. The yearly responses number in the thousands leading to a much more involved consumer experience and over 60% of Unilever's research projects involve customer collaboration. Unilever's approach has created a highly collaborative co-creation platform with its customers that captures the current VOC (voice of customer) and enables them to be involved in the creation of new concepts in Unilever's products.

(Unilever, 2020)

IKEA is a 75+ year old Swedish worldwide retailer of home solutions. It founded the business on providing affordable and well-designed products that are safe, sustainable and responsible and available to everyone. In 2018 the firm launched a 'Co-Create IKEA' platform to encourage customers to provide their insights. This platform looks at customer feedback, suggestions and comments, IKEA bootcamps with new entrepreneurs, collaborating with students on new solutions, and connecting with global innovation labs. Any inputs that are implemented such as product designs, are licensed by IKEA or offers made to invest in future projects. These rewards work as an incentive to designers, customers or just fans and helps the firm gain international exposure. The firm has already implemented several submitted ideas and offers cash rewards to all whose ideas are successful. Additionally, it also provides tools to aid creativity and innovation, such as test labs and prototype shops that can help customers develop and refine their ideas. The global presence in 50 countries provides it with a large customer base that allows the company to harness unique design insights from all over the world. Using crowd wisdom to drive product innovation, the firm has created a competitive advantage in the market while encouraging and involving its customer community in product offerings.

(IKEA, 2020)

3. Both Unilever and IKEA have adopted the use of technology to reach a diverse and geographically spread out customer base. While Unilever poses specific challenges to its customers, IKEA allows its customers free rein in their ideas and recommendation. Both the platforms have been popular in drawing in customer feedback on multiple aspects of the companies' products and service and have lead to significant successes. As customer-orientation increases due to increased competition, there is more need to include the voice of customer in the product adaptations to ensure the products stay relevant and in demand as customer needs and requirements change over time. The platforms were designed to enable customers to have a more significant stake in the finished products to ensure interest in new and upcoming products. The best outcomes seem to come from the targeted approach rather than the open-ended questions. While it may appear to be more restrictive, this approach instead has lead customers to think about a specific problem and to then consider its possible resolutions. Co-creation is also not just about products but also about meaningful improvements along other areas such as deliveries, cost savings. These aspects encourage me to think about including similar concepts in my own business. The mutually beneficial relationship can help drive a better brand image, longer-term sustainability and more profits from customer-designed product lines. Using technology to reach diverse groups of people is a very productive way to ensure constant feedback from people who use your products/services and of ensuring there is continuous improvement policy within a firm. The co-creation approach has also lead to a greater community feeling and confidence between the customers and the brands, which in turn has made them stronger over time and this would be a valuable approach to adopt in any future business.

(Fournier, 2019)

References :

Fournier, Alexis. (2019) Customer Co-Creation Examples: 10 Companies Doing it Right. Braineet.

IKEA (2020) This is IKEA.

Unilever (2020) About Unilever.