Success Practices in Co-Creation (enter the wild west!)

This first report from IX Research explores the enablement ecosystem for co-creation, describes why the uncertainty of co-creation is a blessing not a curse, and presents the success practices that innovation practitioners should use to guide their co-creation work.

You’ve heard of co-creation, right? It’s the act of bringing consumers or customers into the process of developing products, services, or experiences, through which mutual value is created. I first started writing about co-creation in 2010, and it remains a fascinating topic. Why? Because it’s like the wild wild west: Opportunties abound, and there are few rules for what you can and can’t do. The only true limit on how to use co-creation is your own creativity.

But most companies are either still sitting on the sidelines, or have only just begun experimenting with co-creation. The first report published by IX Research, “Success Practices in Co-Creation,” is designed to help innovation practitioners at those firms — be they in product, marketing, R&D, market research, IT, or even HR and legal — recognize the opportunity that exists with co-creation, and set the stage for ensuring  a successful engagement. The report answers the following three key questions:

1. What is driving the growth of co-creation? Co-creation isn’t new, but more and more companies are experimenting with it as they recognize that they are now able to engage with consumers in ways that were never before possible. Co-creation continues to build due to a three-part enablement ecosystem, fueled by pervasive connectivity, social technologies, and consumer participation.

2. How is uncertainty both a barrier and a benefit to co-creation? Risk averse companies shy away from the unknown, preferring to rely on old methods and safe tactics that rarely result in innovation. The uncertainty of the outcome of a co-creation engagement is precisely what makes it so valuable as a tool to help you meet your business objectives.

3. What practices should you follow to ensure co-creation success? Best practices will apply to the specific co-creation engagement you eventually choose, but our ‘success practices’ are higher-level recommendations that help fight co-creation uncertainty and give innovation practitioners and their senior management teams confidence of a positive co-creation experience. We culled these success practices from four in-depth case studies with the Co-Creation Award 2012 winners (Jeppesen-Sanderson Inc., Deutsche Seniorenliga, Rabobank, and Asatsu-DK), which are presented in the report.

Interested in learning more?

Gain access to this report by subscribing to IX Research, the research arm of Innovation Excellence. Our goal is to give innovation practitioners the information, data, analysis, and recommendations they need to build innovation as a business discipline. Our individual membership is just $300 per year — that’s far below what you’d expect to pay for even one report from other analyst firms. Click here and subscribe today!

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Doug Williams, Chief Research Officer and Principal Analyst, leads the development of IX Research. Doug is the primary author of IX Research‘s syndicated research reports, and is responsible for the development of the IX Research Panel and IX Custom Research lines of business. A former analyst at both Forrester Research and JupiterResearch, he launched and led Forrester’s innovation and co-creation practice for product strategy professionals. He authored 36 highly rated Forrester Research reports on innovation, open innovation, and co-creation, and was the primary author and developer of Forrester’s Open Innovation playbook. Doug tweets from @DougWilliamsMHD.