serendipity

I’ve been reading a lot about the concept of co-creation and how it applies to services, and in the processes of doing so, came across this presentation from SUNIDEE, a consultancy firm based in Amsterdam, Paris and Hong Kong.

It is really sad to see yet another marketing concept being misinterpreted by some consultancy firm or another. Let’s get the facts straight:

1. Co-creation and co-production are different concepts

Co-creation is a new concept that arose from services marketing literature and emphasizes the idea that value is not being produced by the firm and delivered to the customer, but it is instead created by both parties, during the service exchange, as well as during the use of the product/service by the customer.

Co-production, on the other hand, does somewhat fit the definition provided by SUNIDEE, as a means of involving customers at different phases of a new product/service development. 

2. Co-creation workshops, crowdsourcing, open source, mass customization, and user-generated content are not types of co-creation, or even co-production for that matter! They are actually just simple tools through which a firm could co-produce value with its customers, not actual types of co-production. 

I know business consultancy is often about meaningless catchphrases, but even a quick read through the Wikipedia entry could have helped in this case.