Co-Creation Strategies: Innovating together with Customers

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Nicholas Jonathan Ind	Marketing	ENG

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

This course aims to help students to understand how brands can innovate collaboratively together with their customers and other stakeholders to achieve profitable, sustainable growth.

After completion of the course, students will be ready to manage a co-creation project in any professional organization.

Moreover, they will get the strategic mindset required to build a portfolio of innovations and brands that reinforce each other, adding relevant value for customers and the organization.

Finally, students will also develop the leadership skills and competences that managers need in the current open, collaborative, digital business environment.

Course Learning Objectives

Innovation is the key driver for sustained profitable growth in any organization. However, most of of the traditional market research techniques and tools used in innovation funnels have important limitations. Additionally, the traditional inside-out approach to innovation produces low returns on investment. Moreover, many companies don't know how to build and implement a successful innovation strategy.

This is why organizations need to adopt more open and collaborative approaches to innovation capable of increasing the return on their investments.

This is a very strategic course that aims to focus on how brands can innovate collaboratively together with their customers and other stakeholders to improve innovation success rates. Co-creation allows companies to become truly customer centric and to build and develop, together with their customers, new valuable products and services.

The key learning objectives from the course will be:

- To understand how to design, lead, and manage a co-creation project.

- To learn how to conduct ethnography and netnography as a way of building insights into consumer attitudes and behaviour.

- Upon completing this course, participants will also comprehend which the key barriers to co-creation are and how to overcome them.

- Another central objective will be to understand how to develop a supportive corporate culture so that co-creation can flourish.

- During the course participants will progressively develop the leadership traits that co-creation requires.

- Within the sphere of management, students will also be able to develop skills for analysis and planning; problem definition and resolution; preparation, making and implementation of decisions; search for and interpret important data; formulate strategies and work effectively with others.

CONTENT

1. Introduction to co-creation Introduction and ethnographic research Objective: To understand what co-creation is and how it differs from other concepts and typologies of collaborative innovation. To comprehend how to manage a co-creation initiative (online and offline). To become familiar with the concept and scope of ethnographic and netnographic research and to learn how to conduct ethnographic and netnographic research.
2. Managing Co-creation strategies Objective: To understand why organizations use co-creation and the potential benefits To learn how to set the scope of a co-creation process To understand the range of co-creation methods and how and when to use them.
3. Understanding costumers and their motivations Objective: To develop insights into the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of customers to participate in co-creation. To learn about the role played by lead users To learn how to best manage the co-creation process The session will include a lecture and group tutorials.
4. Realising the full potential of co-creation Objective: To understand the use of co-creation methods with other stakeholders, in business-to-business and other contexts (places, cultural institutions, government). To understand that many companies don't realize the full potential of co-creation. To discuss how to overcome the key challenges to realizing the full potential of co-creation.
5. Innovation Challenge: presentations and discussion Objective: To present the findings of the group project. To learn from the group projects how to conduct an innovation project grounded in ethnographic research and co-creation methods.

1. Introduction to co-creation

Introduction and ethnographic research

Objective:
To understand what co-creation is and how it differs from other concepts and typologies of collaborative innovation.
To comprehend how to manage a co-creation initiative (online and offline).
To become familiar with the concept and scope of ethnographic and netnographic research and to learn how to conduct ethnographic and netnographic research.

2. Managing Co-creation strategies

Objective:
To understand why organizations use co-creation and the potential benefits
To learn how to set the scope of a co-creation process
To understand the range of co-creation methods and how and when to use them.

3. Understanding costumers and their motivations

Objective:
To develop insights into the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of customers to participate in co-creation.
To learn about the role played by lead users
To learn how to best manage the co-creation process
The session will include a lecture and group tutorials.

4. Realising the full potential of co-creation

Objective:

To understand the use of co-creation methods with other stakeholders, in business-to-business and other contexts (places, cultural institutions, government).
To understand that many companies don't realize the full potential of co-creation.
To discuss how to overcome the key challenges to realizing the full potential of co-creation.

5. Innovation Challenge: presentations and discussion

Objective:

To present the findings of the group project. To learn from the group projects how to conduct an innovation project grounded in ethnographic research and co-creation methods.

Methodology

The course will create an environment based on experiential learning, which will help students to integrate the pedagogic objectives previously presented. The sessions will combine the following learning tools:

* Lectures that will provide the basic theoretical frameworks to approach every topic, and additional readings to further develop each of these course topics.

* Guest speakers, who will transfer part of their knowledge through their personal experiences.

* Final assignment: Team project where the students will need to develop an innovation in a service ecosystem using co-creation.

Assessment criteria

PARTICIPANT EVALUATION:

* Final assignment - The service innovation challenge (70%). The students will need to develop a relevant innovation by managing a co-creation project that should integrate the findings from ethnography and netnography, and an online community. The final grade will be weighted individually based on the peer review.

* Individual participation in class (30%).

Participation will be assessed based not only on quantity, but mostly on the quality of the contributions. In this regard, it is expected that contributions will add value to the class discussion and it will be especially rewarded that they build on the ideas previously shared by your colleagues and move the discussion forward.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: THE SERVICE INNOVATION CHALLENGE
As well as acquiring new customers, companies increasingly recognize the importance of retaining and developing the customers they have. Consequently service becomes ever more fundamental both as a means of differentiating brands (both products and services) and in securing future cash flows. However service is also expensive, so companies are pushing towards digitalizing their interactions with customers and in turn customers are becoming more willing to serve themselves. The challenge here is twofold. First, companies need to ensure that there is a consistent quality of experience for customers across all touchpoints - both digital and physical. Second, companies need to find new and innovative ways to deliver service.

Students will be asked to conduct a service innovation for a given brand and product category by developing a project based on co-creation, ethnography and netnography, using also an online co-creation community.

Type:	OPT	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	2 ECTS

Co-Creation Strategies: Innovating together with Customers (2235.YR.001152.1)

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