Customer value co-creation: A structured literature review of customer
value co-creation applied on the BMW co-creation lab.
Abstract
The meaning of value and the process of value creation are rapidly shifting from a product- and firm-centric view to a personalized consumer experiences (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). In this thesis we performed a structured literature review on customer value co-creation to create a holistic overview. Co-co-creation is a theoretical building block in the business model of the value creating process (Zott, Amit & Masa, 2011). Five aspects of co-creation: development, purpose, non-purpose, mechanism and outcome are identified (Zott et al., 2011). We found that co-creation is a social construction and formed by the process of interaction (Edvardsson, Tronvoll & Gruber, 2011). Firms use the interaction to create a better value experience by giving customers feeling of empowerment (Füller, Mühlbacher, Matzler & Jawecki, 2009), creating enjoyment and control among customers (Tynan, McKechnie & Chhuon, 2010), and that gives the firm opportunities to grow and sustain their business for the future. We put this in practice on BMW’s co-creation lab. As all customers are co-creators of value (Grönroos, 2012), BMW need to provide access to each individual to improve their co-creation process.
Hidde Jeroen van Duuren 10221379
28-06-2015 2014/2015
Supervisor: C. Gelhard Co-creating innovative value
Statement of originality
This document is written by: Hidde Jeroen van Duuren, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of contents
1. Introduction 4
2. Traditional view on value and value creation 6
3. Methodology 9
3.1 Design of data gathering 9
3.2 Analyses of data found 11
4. Findings in the structured literature review of value co-creation 12
4.1 Development towards value co-creation 12
4.2 Purpose and not purpose of co-creation 14
4.3 The mechanism and outcome of co-creation 17
4.3.1 Dialogue. 18
4.3.2 Access & transparency. 19
4.3.3 Evaluating risk and benefits. 20
4.3.4 Conclusion. 22
5. Implications and suggestions 23
5.1 Process of BMW co-creation lab 23
5.2 BMW analyses 25
5.2.1 Development towards the BMW co-creation lab. 25 5.2.2 Purpose and not purpose of co-creation for BMW. 26
5.2.3 Mechanism and outcome BMW. 27
Dialogue. 27
Transparency and access. 28
Risk and benefits. 29
5.2.4 Wrap-up findings BMW. 30
1. Introduction
In 2003, the BMW-Group created an online platform called the “BMW co-creation lab” for co-creating their products and services with their customers. Over time BMW-Group had reached a group of 4964 customers who delivered a total of 1314 ideas. Customers evaluate concepts which are developed by the BMW Group but also actively contribute their ideas and suggestions to the BMW-Group, Unfortunately the last project they launched was on the 17th of may 2013, almost two years ago. BMW-Group acknowledged the importance of getting customers involved in the value creation process with the development of their own co-creation platform. However it seems that the platform has not been used over the last two years.
Traditionally, customers only got involved in the value creating process when value was exchanged from the firm to the customer (Chesbrough, 2003). However times have changed. The meaning of value and the process of value creation are rapidly shifting from a product- and firm-centric view to personalized consumer experiences (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Companies are increasingly rethinking the fundamental ways in which they generate ideas and bring them to market — harnessing external ideas while leveraging their in-house R&D outside their current operations (Chesbrough, 2003). Companies try to get stakeholders actively involved in their value creating process, which changes the traditional business models.
The customer, as one of the stakeholders of the firm, can be one of the stakeholders actively involved in the process of creating value and can be one of the theoretical building blocks in the business model of the value creating process (Zott et al., 2011). Customers can actively participating in two main processes of value creation. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000, 2004) state that co-creation can take place in all stages of New Product Development
(NPD) or New Service Development (NSD). Despite both processes, the main point that Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), Payne, Storbacka, Frow and Knox (2009) and Vargo and Lusch (2004) argue is that the firm does not create and deliver value to the passive customer, but rather through interaction and dialogue embeds value in the co-creation process between the firm and its active customer by creating a value experience.
In a recent study of Zott et al. (2011), they asked for more clarity within the theoretical building blocks of the business model, its antecedents and consequences, and the mechanisms through which it works. Our research contributes to the research of Zott et al. (2011) by giving more clarity in the building block of value co-creation. Zott et al. (2011) discusses five points concerned with the building block of the business model. This thesis performs a structured literature review on value co-creation and tries to identify five points of the building block within the co-creation literature. We review: the development towards value co-creation, the purpose and non-purpose of value co-creation, and the mechanism, consequences and outcome of value co-creation. The goal is to understand value creation as a building block in the business model of Zott et al. (2011).
Besides the theoretical contribution there is a practical contribution as well. After discussing the five theoretical dimensions of value co-creation, our findings will be applied on the BMW co-creation lab. This practical implication has three main purposes. At first, the analyses of the BMW co-creation lab can be useful for the BMW-Group, because we give some suggestions on how they could improve their co-creation process. Secondly, other firms and car manufacturers in particular, can use the information for improvement on their value co-creation processes. The third reason is more theoretical driven because when we apply our findings it makes it easier to identify other gaps in research and limitations of this research all concerned with value co-creation.
In this thesis we will first briefly describe the traditional view on value creation and what value means in that perspective. After this brief description of the traditional view we will come to our method where we show our research design for finding data and discuss the way we will analyse our data. Our method is followed by the analyses of value co-creation and discusses our findings on the development towards value co-creation, the purpose and non-purpose of value co-creation, and the mechanism, consequences and outcome of value co-creation. As this research partially had a practical implication to review the process of the BMW case, we start the discussion by showing the process of the BMW co-creation lab. We then analyse the case of BMW by using the findings in our literature, and will end our discussion with a conclusion where we show gaps in the literature and make suggestions for improvement of BMW’s co-creation lab. Finally we discuss the contribution of this review and the main findings ending with our limitations and ask for further research.
2. Traditional view on value and value creation
Traditionally when looking at value and consumer behaviour, economists tend to refer to the utility theory (Bowman & Ambrosini 2000). The utility theory states that consumers try to spend their income to maximize the satisfaction they get from products. Bowman & Ambrosini (2000), make a clear distinction in the definition of value, the exchange value and the perceived use value. The exchange value is a monetary measure at a single point of time when value is exchanged. The perceived use value is the judgement of the consumer on the specific quality, and therefore a subjective measure. The perceived use value is not reflected in a monetary measure. However, the exchange value can partially measure the perceived use value for a specific customer. We can assume that if the consumer agreed on the exchange value, the perceived use value will at least equal the exchange value when we try to define the perceived use value in a monetary measure.
When we assume that exchange value at least equals the perceived use value we could state that value is created when value is exchanged. This view on value creation and meaning of value refers to the goods-dominant (G-D) logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). In this perspective roles for consumer and producer are clear. The producer creates value by a series of activities where the consumer exchanges the value for money. The creation of value is the core purpose and central process of economic exchange (Vargo, Maglio & Akaka, 2008). The view on value creation that we just introduced is seen as the traditional view on value creation.
The traditional view on the value creating process is a firm centric view. In the firm centric view companies must generate their own ideas that they would then develop, manufacture, market, distribute and service by themselves (Chesbrough, 2003). The only time the consumer gets involved in the process is when value is exchanged. The main assumption made in these theories was that if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself (Chesbrough, 2003). Building on the firm centric view, scientists developed theories for improving the value creating process by focussing on improvements within the firm.
Porter introduced a framework called the value chain. He stated that corporate strategy is what makes the corporate whole add up to more than the sum of its business unit parts (1987). A framework that creates a competitive advantage by organizing the business units within the firm in an effective manner can make the overall performance and value proposition better. Strengths are shared throughout the organization while weaknesses are minimized as much as possible. This enables the firm to react on opportunities and threats within the environment where the firm is operating in.
Understanding sources of competitive advantage for firms has become another major area of research in the field of strategic management and the creation of value (Barney, 1991). The resource-based view of Barney (1991) indicates sources of competitive advantage
within the firm. Firm resources include all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, information, knowledge controlled by the firm to conceive of and implement strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness (Daft, 1983). In the resource based view the firm should look for resources that are key strengths within the organization. Resources can be of competitive advantage when they are valuable, rare, imitable, non substitutable and exploitable (Barney, 1991).
The value chain of Porter and the resource-based view of Barney are well known theories and are still used today. The theories had a strong firm centric view when they were developed. These days the firm centric assumption might be a bit out of date. A firm's critical resources may span firm boundaries (Dyer & Singh, 1998). This suggestion insists that firms should open up their boundaries. The main idea by opening up their boundaries is that firms can, and should use external as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their value creating process (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke & West, 2006). External paths and ideas can be understood in its widest form. Many leading corporations, non-profit organizations, and even governments have begun to open up their boundaries (Lee, Olsen & Trimi, 2012). They acknowledge that using external stakeholders can optimize the value creation process. The traditional frameworks can still be used when resources outside the firm are included in these frameworks.
Stakeholders together with the firm are the value creators of today. Firms have thousands of stakeholders and this thesis will focus on the customers as a stakeholder and creator of value. While Barney’s focus for resources was specifically on the firm, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) insist that customers become a new source of competence for the corporation. Customers are becoming a key source of competitive advantage because, in addition to revenues, suppliers can gain product ideas, technologies, and/or market access, etc. from their customers (Walter, Ritter & Gemünden, 2001). Firms should get their
customers actively involved in their value creating process. The strategic importance to co-opt customer competencies for value creation is evident (Vargo & Lusch, 2004).
The roots of the co-opt customers in the value creation process started with the research of Von Hippel (1986). Von Hippel introduced the lead user theory. Lead users are users whose present strong needs will become general in a marketplace months or years in the future (Hippel, 1986). Because lead users often attempt to fill the need they experience, they can provide new product concept and design data as well (Hippel, 1986). Basically Von Hippel acknowledges the fact that consumers are potential co-creators of value. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) state that the distinguishing feature of the new marketplace is that consumers become a new source of competence for the corporation.
3. Methodology 3.1 Design of data gathering
The further design of this study was a structured literature review. For structuring our literature review we used ‘Scopus’ as the database for finding our data. The aim of this review was to get a structured holistic overview of the current literature on value co-creation. We cannot review all articles so decided to analyse 90 articles in the subject area of co-creation. The search for literature consists a total of three searches through the database. All searches were done in the timeframe of “2000 - present”. We started the search for literature by looking for articles with the term “co-creation” in the title, keywords or abstract. This gave us 1861 results in total, which was unfeasible to analyse for this thesis, so we had to narrow it down.
We limited the initial results to articles and reviews that were published in academic journals to increase the validity of our thesis. Articles and reviews in academic journals are reviewed before they get published and therefore increased the quality and reliability of the data we found. The subject areas of these journals were business, management, economics
and accounting leaving us with 628 articles. Interesting to see was that no articles were found before 2003, between 2003 and 2008 there were only 18 articles within the set criteria, from 2008 onwards the growth of articles concerned with the term “co-creation” raise exponential. Before further narrowing the research we decided to pick the articles between 2003 and 2008 out of the database because we assumed that these articles formed the foundation of the concept of co-creation.
To bring back the rest of the articles to a more convenient number we added three keywords where at least one keyword needed to be met. The keywords were “value creation”, “value co-creation” and “co-creation”. That summed to a total of 320 results. By adding more restriction we scared the loss of literature and decided to pick the 72 most cited articles because that would increase the validity of this review. The 72 articles plus the 18 articles we already enclosed add up to 90 articles in total.
When we started analysing the data we discovered something of our interest. In the field of value co-creation, the word co-creation had several substitutes like: co-innovation and co-development. To make sure we fully cover our subject area this finding forced us to look further for articles using these terms to fully cover our review subject. The term “co-innovation” gave us 38 articles and reviews that were published in academic journals in the subject areas of business, management, economics and accounting. We used articles that were cited at least 10 times and added 11 articles to the database. The same we did for the term “co-development” and that gave us another 24 articles. Ending with a total of 125 articles as the database for this review.
For all 125 articles in the database we set up one additional criterion that each article needed to satisfy before they were conducted into this review. The journals in which the articles were published needed to be ranked in the Journal Quality List (JQL) of Harzing. We already used the most cited articles as one of our selection criteria to increase the validity of
our review. Therefore we assume that most articles will be listed so this criterion was just used to make sure that all articles were of good quality. When we reviewed the journals with this criterion only a few articles were not used for further analyses. In the appendix A we gave an overview of findings in the literature. Hence not all articles of the initial dataset are in there, we only show our findings.
3.2 Analyses of data found
In this research we were particularly interested in five aspects of the building block of co-creation (Zott et al., 2011). Zott et al. (2011) discusses these five aspects for business as a whole. We integrated these five aspects to understand co-creation as a building block. The first three aspects we looked at were (1) the development towards today's purpose of co-creation, (2) the purpose of co-co-creation, and we describe what (3) co-creation is not. These three aspects gave clarity in the concept of co-creation because we showed where the concept of customer co-creation builds upon and we discussed the purpose of co-creation by also showing what is not seen as co-creation which creates full understanding. The other two aspects of interest were: (4) the mechanism of co-creation, and (5) the actual outcomes and consequences of co-creation. As the first three aspects gave insight in what co-creation is, the final two aspects describe the process and outcome of co-creation. Identifying these five steps gives a clear overview of what is known of the building block of value co-creation and parts that still need more explanation. In the appendix we created an overview of all literature analysed and show how we used the data to analyse the five aspects.
Analysing the literature we identified these five steps. We will use the literature analyses to evaluate the process of the BMW co-creation lab. We first described the process in the perspective of the BMW-Group so we understood the platform in their perspective before we did our own analyses. The main prediction we made in this thesis was that the BMW’s co-creation lab does not fulfil the theory behind co-creation fully. This raised the
question for a more complete overview on the theory of co-creation to better understand the right practice of co-creation. By reviewing the existing literature and analysing this case with our findings we aimed to identify a gap in the existing literature.
4. Findings in the structured literature review of value co-creation
We already gave a brief introduction towards the concept of value co-creation. This part performs the structured literature review on value co-creation and tries to identify the five points of the building block as described in the method section. We review; (4.1) the development towards value creation, (4.2) the purpose and non-purpose of value co-creation, (4.3) and the mechanism, consequences and outcome of value co-creation.
4.1 Development towards value co-creation
The view on value creation evolved over time. The traditional view on value creation is a firm- and product centric view (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Tynan et al., 2010). In this view the products that are offered, and the innovation of these products, are all managed and created by the firm. This makes the process of value creation an in-house process. The products better described as “the output” that are offered to the customer is the value that is created (Michel, Vargo & Lusch, 2008). The total value of the firm’s output is defined by the total price of the output delivered (Vargo et al., 2008). This traditional firm- and product centric view is in the field of marketing described by the Goods-Dominant logic theory. Here, the firm is in control of all activities they undertake to create value. A tidy controlled marketing communication with distinct, identifiable corporate spokespeople is a perfect example of this firm controlled activities (Muñiz & Schau, 2011).
In the Goods-Dominant logic the role of the firm is set as the creator of value. This indicates that there is a clear distinction between the creators and the receivers of value. The receivers are the customers and they only get involved during the value exchange (Cova &
Salle, 2008; Chesbrough, 2003). This distinction of creators and receivers is shifting as traditional methods of market learning, innovation and value offering start to erode by the effect of fragmenting markets, shortening product life cycles and the emergence of the marketing-literate consumer (Roberts, Baker & Walker, 2005), which can be explained by the emergence of the internet (Zwass, 2010). This shift and erosion of traditional methods challenges the theory of the Goods-Dominant logic and develops a new perspective in the marketing theory called the Service-Dominant logic (Payne et al., 2009).
In the Service-Dominant logic it is the personalized consumer experience that defines the meaning of value and the value creation process (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Tynan et al., 2010). This perspective of value as a personalized consumer experience indicates that just the exchange of innovative products at one moment in time is not longer seen as value creation. Therefore value creation must be seen as a process rather than just an exchange of output and the firm is perceived to organize this process (Vargo et al., 2008). By seeing value creation as a process automatically is assumed that more parties than just the firm are involved. According to Vargo and Lusch (2011) all social and economic actors, like the firm and the customers, are service providing, value-creating parties.
As the process of value creation is shifting, the way in which value is defined must be changed as well. We cannot measure value at one point in time by defining value as the price of output during exchange. Value is fundamentally derived and determined in use rather than in exchange (Vargo & Lusch, 2011). Where traditionally firms only offered products, firms started to provide additional services and now they are offering solutions (Cova & Salle, 2008). Offering solutions is part of the personalized consumer experience, which describes the meaning of value today. By looking for solutions and creating personalized experience the need to rethink the roles of the firm and the customer is clear. So do Leavy & Moitra
(2006) indicate that firms should shift from innovating their products to innovating the experience and by doing that they create value.
Where value creation and thus the experience is described as a process which is valued over time and where all social and economic actors are service providing, value creating parties, parties need to get involved in creating, developing and innovating value. Deck & Strom (2002) showed in their paper that only a handful of companies have made co-development an integral element of their business models, building a strategy for continuous cross-enterprise development. But it is not just businesses that create value, there are more stakeholders involved in creating the experience where customers for example have potential creative competences (Hienerth, Keinz & Lettl, 2011). Matthing Sandén and Edvardsson (2004) already showed in an experiment that customers are more innovative in terms of originality and user value than professional developers show to be. So the need to integrate these customers is set, and what we see today is that modern business organizations are increasingly turning their attention to individual customers to create, innovate or co-develop value (Sarker, Sarker, Sahaym & Bjørn-Andersen, 2012; Buur & Matthews, 2008)
4.2 Purpose and not purpose of co-creation
Value co-creation theory has lot of implications and definitions and can be used for various purposes. In our method section we have already discussed that we found synonyms for value co-creation like co-innovation and co-development. It is interesting to analyse the differences between, and use of these terms, however there are some fundamental foundations in value co-creation theory that account to all of these terms no matter which definition you use. To enable the process of value co-creation with customers, we need to understand the new marketplace. The traditional market as a place where value is exchanged does not hold to develop a value co-creating process. The marketplace should rather be the place where customers have the opportunity to interact with the firm and vice versa (Prahalad &
Ramaswamy, 2004). The interaction stands central in the Service-Dominant logic and it is the interaction that is seen as the basis of the concept of value co-creation where the customer as "always being a co-creator of value" where "the brand becomes the experience" (Payne et al., 2009).
Interaction is the foundation of value co-creation and is supported by different authors (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Rowley, Kupiec-Teahan & Leeming, 2007; Kohler, Fueller, Matzler & Stieger, 2011). Interaction as such is not seen as a practice of value co-creation but when interaction has the purpose of creating a relationship between the customer and the firm, this view might change (Fisher & Smith, 2011). The relationship could be seen as a form of co-creation value because this relation increases the value of the experience. This relation could even take bigger forms, like for instance creating a community among customers. The practice of interaction creates a relation, and the relation leads to a better experience, and this experience could create a sense of community among customers. Facilitating communication within that community, acting on the feedback, and continuously developing and maintaining the community relationship co-creates the value of the experience by strong interaction (Rowley et al., 2007; Franke & Schreier, 2008).
Strong interaction consists of four building blocks; dialogue, transparency, access and understanding of risk, as Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) described. The dialogue is understood as deep and engaged interaction between the firm and the customer and can only be done by being accessible and transparent in information sharing. The firm creates better understanding what customers want, which enables the firm to better respond and service its customers. The personalized interaction is what co-creation is about. Where firms are transparent and accessible in the dialogue and where the customer knows the benefits and risks of engaging in the co-creating process. Co-creation is neither the transfer nor outsourcing of activities to customers nor a customization of products and services. Nor is it a
scripting or staging of customer events around the firm’s various offerings (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).
Till now value creation is all about creating the experience. When we try to see co-innovation and co-development as synonyms for value co-creation and we look at co-innovation like Leavy & Moitra (2006) they can hold as synonyms. Leavy & Moitra (2006) suggest that firms should focus on innovating and developing the experience rather than the product. But when we understand these terms with the purpose of product development and innovation, co-innovation and co-development are seen as part of the value co-creation theory (Rowley et al., 2007; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli, 2005). In Rowley et al. (2007) context we can understand co-innovation as the term that is used to develop or innovate products together with customers. With this understanding we can see product development and innovation as a purpose of value co-creation, meaning that product innovation and development are part of the experience, as the overall purpose of value co-creation should lead to increase the value of the experience (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Lee, Olson & Trimi, 2012).
When co-innovation and co-development are seen as co-creating the product with customers and is part of the overall experience it can be seen as an extra dimension of co-creation. These forms of co-creation, when they are practiced in a right manner, can create uniqueness for the firm and its products and fully engage the potential creativity of the customer (Franke & Schreier, 2008; Kohler et al., 2011). The customer as a resource and when fully engaged can make the customer become part of a problem solving process (Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola, 2012). When product innovation and development is part of the value experience, the ultimate goal is to extent the experience of the customers with the perception of superior value-in-use (Tokman & Beitelspacher, 2011).
The purposes we discussed on value co-creation are all in the interest of the customer but what is the purpose for the firm to engage in the co-creation process? Good practice of
value co-creation can create a competitive advantage for the firm (Fliess & Becker, 2006). This competitive advantage can for instance be a cost advantage by using the creativity and knowledge of the customer to innovate and develop products instead of all in-house development and innovation processes (Fliess & Becker, 2006). But there is more than just the cost advantage on the development and innovation of products (Rowley et al., 2007). Good practice of co-creation where a harmonious relation between the customer and firm is created, gives the firm control over the co-creation process. The control over the process and the customer ensures the outcome of co-creation for the firm (Fisher & Smith, 2011).
We have seen that interaction is the basis to co-create the experience and to extent the experience to superior value in use. The interaction can create a form of relationship between the customer and the firm, increasing the value of the experience and lead towards a feeling of community among the customers. Strong interaction starts with a dialogue where the firm needs to be accessible and transparent in the process and where customers understand the benefits and risks of engaging in the process. Product development and innovation are part of the experience and therefore a dimension in the value co-creation process. Firms can engage customer’s knowledge, creativity and uniqueness with the ultimate goal to extent the experience of the customers by creating a perception of superior value-in-use. For the firm, good practice of value co-creation can create a competitive advantage. This can be a cost-advantage but can also create a form of control over customers, which ensures a positive outcome of the co-creation process.
4.3 The mechanism and outcome of co-creation
We mentioned that strong interaction consists of four building blocks; dialogue, transparency, access and understanding of risk, as Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) described. Getting an overview of the mechanism of interaction is key in reviewing the theory of value co-creation. In this section we will describe each dimension of the so-called DART model of Prahalad and
Ramaswamy (2004) by integrating the literature of value co-creation we found to get full understanding of the mechanism. Starting with the dialogue, discussing access and transparency together as we found that this shows quite some overlap, ending with the understanding of the risk and benefits which is seen as the evaluation of the outcomes of the interaction and therefore value co-creation process.
4.3.1 Dialogue.
Value is created by the experience, and in that regard value is a social construction (Edvardsson, Tronvoll & Gruber, 2011). This social construction of value makes value co-creation a function of interaction (Grönroos & Voima, 2013). The function of interaction can create value when the firm achieves to create a relationship by establishing trust and uncovering the actual needs of the customer. The mechanism of value co-creation can be seen as the set of actions made by the firm and the customer to co-create value (Grönroos, 2012). The set of actions of the firm and customer must create the dialogue. A dialogue is a conversation where both, the firm, and the customer, respond on the set of actions they undertake. Dialogue is more than listening and responding, it is seen as an active conversation where we try to find solutions for certain problems (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).
Some authors argue that all customers are co-creators of value and they should all be engaged in the process (Grönroos, 2012), while others suggest that only new customers and lead users need to integrate in the co-creation of value (Lau, Tang & Yam, 2010). Although these customers might be most useful for the firm, each customer should get the opportunity to engage in the process to get the opportunity to create its own personalized experience. Creating the opportunity for customers to interact can also be enabled by integrating and interacting with consumer groups as this is described as a practice of co-creation as well (Pongsakornrungsilp & Schroeder, 2011). Co-creation value with groups can give the
customers the feeling that in the interaction they have certain influence. Managing the interaction with these groups happens in a public and open sphere (Gebauer, Füller & Pezzei, 2013). We find firms interacting deep in the social communities and all customers are engaged. Firms pursue these communities by providing resources to the social communities and that’s where access and transparency is the next step in full interaction practices.
4.3.2 Access & transparency.
The dialogue is the start of the whole interaction process. Now customers need access and transparency, and this starts with sharing knowledge and sharing resources. By giving access to all resources, the process of co-creation can be optimized and customers can get fully engaged as they are integrated in the total resource network (Lin, Wang & Yu, 2010). The exchange of knowledge and utilization of operant resources among the customers leads to co-created service offerings and value propositions (Tokman & Beitelspacher, 2011). The customer is one of the resources of the firm, and to use this resource as a competitive advantage all participating customers in the co-creation process should get access to all resources available.
Access to all resources provided by the firm automatically provides access to all parts of the value creating process to enable the customer to create the value of the personalized experience. Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012) state that, in a firm perspective, this process starts with diagnosing customer needs, designing and producing solutions, organizing the process and resources, managing value conflicts, and implementing the solution. Payne, Storbacka and Frow (2008) developed a model that helps to identify the fields that are present in value creation process of the customer. They created three stages in the value co-creation process on the customer side that can be related to the five steps of Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012). Emotion of customers is related to the part of diagnosing customer needs and designing and producing solutions, cognition of customers is related to organizing the
process and resources and managing value conflicts, behaviour is related with the implementation of solutions.
Getting customers involved in all steps of the process got enabled by the upcoming of the internet and the development of social media over the last twenty years. Firms are now able to more easily interact with the customer, sharing their knowledge and resources, and communicate all their on going projects. Firm use these opportunities to create online interaction platforms that could be used for co-creating value with the customer (Sawhney et al., 2005). Firms now acknowledge the great potential of the medium. They do not use social media for just telling stories alone but co-create value in collaboration with the customer by creating a platform of interaction (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012; Hienerth et al., 2011). There is not one perfect approach for designing the online platforms but for co-creating practices the platform should be used to exchange knowledge and resources with the customer. The platform should fit the customers that the firm likes to engage (Nambisan & Baron, 2010). The access given to all knowledge and resources of the firm and the openness to engage customers in all steps of the process creates a transparent interaction experience.
4.3.3 Evaluating risk and benefits.
By the implementation of co-creation the nature of the interaction changes the dynamics of the delivery, bringing complex issues such as customer behaviours and involvement to the forefront, with both customer and firm focused on value co-creation and co-production, rather than each party's contractual obligation (Ng, Maull & Yip, 2009). Because co-creation allows customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience, it can affect customer satisfaction with recovery efforts, as well as offer a more cost-effective alternative to compensation (Roggeveen, Tsiros & Grewal, 2012). That gives customers the opportunity to pursue their personality and to create their own personal experience (Arnould, 2005). The firm is able to get better understanding of their customers so together they create a more
valued personalized experience by co-ideation, co-valuation, co-design, co-test and co-launch (Russo-Spena & Mele, 2012).
The interaction process where the dialogue needs access and transparency to actively co-create value with the customer gives the customer a role in the value creating process and certain feeling of empowerment. Füller et al. (2009) propose in their article that is worth full to think of empowering customers in the value creating process. Shown in their research is that empowering customers improves the value creating process and loyalty to the firm. When firms empower the customer and establish access to new ideas and expertise, this will enable them to innovate continually in a highly competitive marketplace and stay at the cutting edge (Tynan et al., 2010). The return for the customers is that they can become part of the firm and processes and influence the outcomes. The empowerment the firm gives to the customer can also create a feeling of enjoyment and control (Tynan et al., 2010). Customer get able to evaluate the risk and benefits of the interaction process and are no longer depending on information spread out by the firm in a monologue, but evaluate by engaging in a dialogue. The degree of co-creation further positively affects customer satisfaction with the service company, customer loyalty, and service expenditures (Grissemann & Stokburger-Sauer, 2012; Seraj, 2012).
Fisher, D., & Smith, S. (2011) state that control is rapidly shifting more to the side of customer, and no one now holds any sort of majority control. Bonsu & Darmody (2008) argue that co-creation just creates the feeling of customer empowerment where market power still is heavily dictated by capital power of the firm. But the feeling of competence and empowerment associated with co-created products and services leads to increased valuation (Mochon, Norton & Ariely, 2012; Bolton & Saxena-Iyer, 2009). The increased valuation gives the firm opportunities of growth when they accept the role of the consumers in helping them create their own experience and enabling the firm of finding new markets (Leavy &
Moitra, 2006). The value the firm delivers by creating value together is better and therefore opening new possibilities especially for smaller firms it is the opportunity to penetrate markets that are dominated by large firms (Leiblein & Madsen, 2009).
4.3.4 Conclusion.
The main message we find is that value is created by the experience, and in that regard value is a social construction (Edvardsson, Tronvoll & Gruber, 2011). The social construction is formed by the process of interaction and consists of four building blocks; dialogue, transparency, access and understanding of risk, as Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) described. All customers are co-creators of value and they should therefore all be engaged in the dialogue and thus the process of value co-creation (Grönroos, 2012). By giving access to all resources, the process of co-creation can be optimized and customers can get fully integrated in the total resource network (Lin et al., 2010). The access is one, the transparency in all steps of value creation starting with diagnosing customer needs, designing and producing solutions, organizing the process and resources, managing value conflicts, and implementing the solution optimizes the value co-creation process (Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola, 2012).
By the implementation of co-creation the nature of the interaction changes the dynamics of the delivery (Ng et al., 2009). Because co-creation allows customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience, it can positively affect customer satisfaction with the service company, customer loyalty, and service expenditures (Grissemann & Stokburger-Sauer, 2012; Seraj, 2012; Roggeveen et al., 2012). It gives customers the opportunity to pursue their personality and to create their own personal experience (Arnould, 2005). Fisher, D., & Smith, S. (2011) state that control is rapidly shifting more to the side of customer, but market power still heavily dictated by capital power of the firm (Bonsu & Darmody, 2008). Firms use the interaction to create a better value of the
experience by giving feeling of empowerment (Füller et al., 2009), creating enjoyment and control among customers (Tynan et al., 2010), and that gives the firm opportunities to grow and sustain their business for the future.
5. Implications and suggestions 5.1 Process of BMW co-creation lab
Before we use the reviewed literature to analyse the BMW co-creation lab we would like to give a brief description of the BMW co-creation lab process. This is how BMW describes their BMW co-creation lab: “The BMW Group Co-Creation Lab is a virtual meeting place for individuals interested in cars and all related topics, who want to share their ideas and opinions on tomorrow's automotive world with one of the leading car manufacturers. It invites people from all over the world to contribute their suggestions for specific topics and to connect with like-minded others. Participants not only evaluate concepts which are developed by the BMW Group but also actively contribute their ideas and suggestions – they become active “co-creators” of innovative products and services.”
This description is the basic concept and purpose of the BMW co-creation lab. We found some additional explanation about the BMW co-creation lab that gives a deeper understanding of the BMW co-creation lab and their view on why this would be a good and effective practice of value creation with the customer. They highlight four steps in the co-creating process where customers are able to co-create value with BMW. The first step is the recognition of opportunities, the second step is idea generation, third is the idea evaluation phase and fourth is the concept refinement.
Customers interacting with the BMW-group are categorized in eight participant groups. These groups are identified by customer behaviour on the platform and named; customers, innovators, brand evangelist, early adopters, lead users, suppliers, experts and pilot customers who all participate in different stages of the process according to the
BMW-group. These different stages engage different customers. In the first step, the recognition of opportunities, BMW sees two main groups for interaction namely customers and brand evangelist. Customers together with innovators are involved in the second phase of interaction, the idea generation. Early adopters and pilot customers are integrated in the third step of the process, which is the idea evaluation. And fourth, lead users, suppliers and experts are engaged for concept refinement purposes. So we have a brief overview of the BMW platform, the way they evaluate the steps in the process and the approach of targeting customers for each step of the process.
To get access to the BMW co-creation lab and become part of the co-creation community new customers need to subscribe. Each customer creates its own profile where some personal information is collected and the main points of interest of the customer are described. With the profile customers can engage in projects launched by the BMW-group and interact with other customers within the community. The community is only practitioning the co-creation activities on the by BMW developed online platform. No social media is used to share anything outside the community.
The motives of customers deciding to join the co-creation lab show that 98% of the practitioners get engaged because they feel attached to the brand. Most of them also have particular interest in the automobile industry. Other motivational factors are getting own ideas in production, become an innovator and be part of the community. The benefits for the customer as BMW states it customers get convenience, the opportunity for suggestions, be better informed on upcoming projects and the feeling of being appreciated by the BMW Group. For the BMW Group the benefits of co-creation are that they create a relationship with customers, getting deeper understanding of them and use their expertise. This all has a positive impact on the integrated projects.
5.2 BMW analyses
5.2.1 Development towards the BMW co-creation lab.
Deck & Strom (2002) showed in their paper that only a handful of companies have made co-development an integral element of their business models, in the perspective of the BMW-Group they already have a long tradition of user-centric value creation. We see tradition more as a tidy controlled marketing communication like Muñiz and Schau (2011) described. They already practiced different co-creation projects like for instance lead users, that have been involved to generate ideas for new media, innovators were invited to co-develop new services in a virtual innovation lab, and consumer insights in the field of sustainability were gained via ethnography. But this is not what is seen as the co-creation practices of today as BMW acknowledges as well. All these efforts in projects run independent and were conducted by different teams within the organisation. Matthing et al. (2004) already showed in an experiment that customers are more innovative in terms of originality and user value than those of professional developers. But why do not share this creativity between projects.
With the launch of the BMW co-creation lab in 2010, BMW aims to use synergies between different co-creation projects. The lab is a central platform for all co-creation activities throughout the value chain. Where BMW traditionally only offered products, as a firm they started to provide additional services as an early mover, and now they try to create solutions together with their customers. We see a process that is developed in the way Cova & Salle (2008) described it. Another conclusion we draw upon this is that they stepped of the traditional view on value creation which is a firm- and product centric view (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Tynan et al., 2010), and they increasingly turning their attention to individual customers to co-create co-innovate and co-develop value and we can see BMW as a modern business organization (Sarker et al., 2012; Buur & Matthews, 2008)
5.2.2 Purpose and not purpose of co-creation for BMW.
In our review we found that interaction is the foundation of value co-creation and that this finding is supported by different authors (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Rowley et al., 2007; Kohler et al., 2011). In the statement BMW Group makes about the purpose of their co-creation lab they say that customers can use the platform not only to evaluate concepts which are developed by the BMW Group, but also actively contribute their ideas and suggestions – they become active “co-creators” of innovative products and services.” They show understanding of the new marketplace as the place where customers have the opportunity to interact with the firm and vice versa (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).
Another focus and purpose of the co-creation lab is that it wants to create a virtual meeting place for individuals, interested in cars and other related topics, who want to share their ideas and opinions on tomorrow's automotive world with one of the leading car manufacturers. In here we notice that they focus on the individual sharing ideas and opinions with the firm, but they do not facilitate communication between the individuals to create a community. Creating a relationship between the customer and the firm can create a community (Fisher & Smith, 2011). When they have individuals related to the firm and they facilitate the communication between individuals to create a community, acting on the feedback, and continuously developing and maintaining the community relationship this improves the co-creation process and the value of the experience (Rowley et al., 2007; Franke & Schreier, 2008).
The overall purpose of value co-creation should lead to increase the value of the experience (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Lee et al., 2012). BMW aims to get customers to become active “co-creators” of innovative products and services.” This corresponds with the suggestion of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) that co-creation can take place in all stages of New Product Development (NPD) or New Service Development (NSD). Co-creation should be neither the transfer nor outsourcing of activities to customers nor a customization of
products and services. Nor is it a scripting or staging of customer events around the firm’s various offerings (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). And that is what BMW Group is not trying to do. They really use their platform to get the interaction going.
5.2.3 Mechanism and outcome BMW.
Dialogue.
A dialogue is a conversation where both, the firm, and the customer, respond on the set of actions they undertake. With a profile customers can engage in projects launched by the BMW-group and interact with the firm and other customers within the community. But a dialogue is more than listening and responding, it is seen as an active conversation where we try to find solutions for certain problems (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). And the dialogue is where value is created by the experience. And in that regard value is a social construction (Edvardsson, Tronvoll & Gruber, 2011). The community is only practitioning the co-creation activities on the by BMW developed online platform. No social media is used to share anything outside the community. They can however come up with own ideas and suggestions that BMW can consider and where other practitioners can respond so there is an active conversation where they try to find solutions for certain problems.
On the BMW platform they try to create a community by creating not only a relationship with the customer but also between the customers. Co-creation value with groups and communities can give the customers the feeling that in the interaction they have certain influence. Managing the interaction with these groups happens in a public and open sphere (Gebauer et al., 2013). We find that in that regret BMW is not openly communicating and inviting others to join the conversation. We find firms should interact deeply in the social communities and engage all potential customers. The customers BMW-Group identifies as co-creators are; customers, innovators, brand evangelist, early adopters, lead users, suppliers, experts and pilot customers who all participate in different stages of the process according to
the BMW-group. Although these customers might be most useful for the firm, each customer should get the opportunity to engage in the process to get the opportunity to create its own personalized experience.
Transparency and access.
To get access to the BMW co-creation lab customers need to subscribe before they can interact and become part of the co-creation community of the BMW co-creation lab.
Some authors argue that all customers are co-creators of value and they should all be engaged in the process (Grönroos, 2012), and in that perspective this process of subscribing does not invite all customers to interact with the BMW. However, with the suggestion that only new customers and lead users need to integrate in the co-creation of value (Lau, Tang & Yam, 2010), this will be a good approach to know who is interacting with BMW. The aim of BMW is to give each customer the opportunity to create its own profile where some personal information is collected and the main points of interest of the customer are described. So inviting all customers and to interact with the firm.
BMW highlights four steps in the creating process where customers are able to co-create value with BMW. Here we can really see that the steps they defined show similarities with the steps that Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012) stated. The first step is the recognition of opportunities, which is explained in the literature as diagnosing customer needs. The second step, idea generation, is about the designing and producing of solutions. The idea evaluation phase can be matched with organizing the process and resources. Finally the concept refinement is about managing value conflicts and implementing the solution. Access to all these parts of the value creating process enables the customer to co-create the value of the personalized experience in all steps of BMW.
Access is given to all steps in the process to create a personalized experience. BMW suggest that different type of customers integrate in different steps of the process. In the first
step, the recognition of opportunities, BMW sees two main groups for interaction namely customers and brand evangelist. Customers together with innovators are involved in the second phase of interaction, the idea generation. According to the literature we called this diagnosing customer needs and designing and producing solutions, and as Payne et al. (2008) showed, emotion of customers is related to this part of the process. That means that these groups; customers, brand evangelist and innovators, interact with emotion. Early adopters, pilot customers are integrated in the third step of the process which is the idea evaluation or as we state, organizing the process and resources. Early adopters and pilot customers are interacting in the process their cognition. Cognition is related to organizing the process and resources and managing value conflicts. However, lead users, suppliers and experts are engaged for the concept refinement, which we related to managing value conflicts and implementing the solution. Here we see lead users, suppliers and experts interact on behaviour and cognition as we related managing value conflicts to the concept refinement phase.
Risk and benefits.
The motives of almost all customers engaged in the co-creation lab show that they get engaged because they feel attached to the brand. By engaging in the co-creation lab it gives customers the opportunity to pursue their personality and to create their own personal experience as Arnould (2005) mentioned. Brand attachment is part of the personality, for the BMW it is the opportunity to better understand their customers and together create a more valued personalized experience (Russo-Spena & Mele, 2012). Because co-creation allows customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience, it can affect customer satisfaction, for BMW they can offer a more cost-effective alternative by engaging the customer instead of own development (Roggeveen et al. 2012).
Other benefits for the customers of BMW are the opportunity for suggestions and be better informed on upcoming projects. This gives the customer a certain feeling of empowerment as Füller, Mühlbacher, Matzler & Jawecki (2009) proposed in their article. This also creates the feeling of being appreciated by the BMW Group and builds the relationship with the brand. For BMW this creates access to new ideas and expertise, this will enable them to innovate continually in a highly competitive marketplace and stay at the cutting edge (Tynan et al., 2010). However customer get empowered and integrated in the process, we see that control is still in hands of the BMW Group. However, the feeling for customers of competence and empowerment associated with co-created products and services leads to increased valuation (Mochon et al., 2012; Bolton & Saxena-Iyer, 2009). The increased valuation and acceptance of the role of the customer for BMW, the customers create their own experience and enabling BMW to grow and create new markets (Leavy & Moitra, 2006).
5.2.4 Wrap-up findings BMW.
An overview of what we found in the BMW co-creation lab. BMW-Group already shows a long tradition of user-centric value creation. The launch of the BMW co-creation lab in 2010, highlights the user-centric view of BMW. The platform they developed creates more synergy between the different co-creation projects. With the design of this new platform, BMW is increasingly turning their attention to individual customers to create, innovate and co-develop value and we therefore see BMW as a modern business organization. They evaluate concepts that are developed in house with the customer, but also actively asking customers to come up with their own ideas and suggestions so they become active “co-creators” of innovative products and services.
BMW’s co-creation lab is a virtual meeting place for individuals, interested in cars and other related topics, who want to share their ideas and opinions. They really use their
platform to get the interaction going. The community is only partitioning in co-creation activities on the by BMW developed online platform. No social media is used to share anything outside the community. We find that in that regret BMW is not openly communicating and inviting others to join the conversation. We think firms should interact deeply in the social communities and engage all potential customers. Each customer should get the opportunity to engage in the process to get the opportunity to create its own personalized experience.
The customers who are engaged do get access to all parts of the value creating process of BMW. Customers get engaged because they feel attached to the brand. By engaging in the co-creation lab it gives customers the opportunity to pursue their personality and to create their own personal experience as Arnould (2005) Other benefits for the customers of BMW are the opportunity for suggestions and be better informed on upcoming projects. This gives the customer a certain feeling of empowerment. For BMW this creates access to new ideas and expertise, this will enable them to innovate continually in a highly competitive marketplace and stay at the cutting edge.
6. Conclusion
With this structured literature review we tried to get more clarity within the theoretical building block of co-creation for expanding the business model. We reviewed: the development towards value co-creation, the purpose and non-purpose of value co-creation, and the mechanism, consequences and outcome of value co-creation. The traditional firm-centric view developed towards the creation of a personalized experience. This development where value is created by the experience is a social construction. All customers should get engaged in creating their own personalized experience. The social construction is formed by the process of interaction were we highlighted four building blocks; dialogue, transparency,
access and understanding of risk. By giving access to all resources, the process of co-creation can be optimized and customers can get fully integrated in the total resource network. The transparency in all steps of the process starting with diagnosing customer needs, designing and producing solutions, organizing the process and resources, managing value conflicts, and implementing the solution optimizes the customers ability to co-create its own personalized experience.
By the implementation of co-creation the nature of the interaction changes the dynamics of the delivery. It can positively affect customer satisfaction with the company, customer loyalty, and expenditures. It gives customers the opportunity to pursue their personality and to create their own personal experience. Firms use the interaction to create a better value of the experience by giving feeling of empowerment. Control is rapidly shifting more to the side of customer, but market power is still heavily dictated by capital power of the firm. Empowering the customer by engaging the customer in the process gives the firm opportunities to grow and sustain their business for the future.
We applied our findings on the BMW co-creation lab. In the case of BMW we find the development towards a more user centric view, which corresponds with the theory we reviewed. The purpose of the BMW co-creation lab was to create more synergy with al the running co-creation projects. We found that the platform was used to get customers involved in all steps of the process. The main issue we indicated in their platform was the access for customers to engage. The creation of a personal account made it hard to participate. Communicating and inviting others to join the conversation where BMW interact with the social communities creates the opportunity for every customer to engage in the process and make an own personalized experience.
This literature review aimed to get a holistic overview on the theory concerned with value co-creation. We used Scopus as our database to find literature and this already creates
two limitations. Due to time restriction we could not review all articles in the database and other databases might have additional literature that is not included in Scopus. Therefore this study can be repeated to extent our review. Another limitation we found was that we only looked for five aspects based on the building blocks for the expansion of the understanding of the business model. These can be elaborated to create a more holistic overview.
The practical implication of our theory gave insight in the holistic aim we set for this thesis. We only had limited information access to evaluate the process of the BMW co-creation lab. However we applied our findings in the structured literature review. To get a better overview of the complete co-creation process within the BMW-Group the approach should rather be a case study. This will create a more holistic approach and that will improve the practical contribution.
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