Comments on: “The Future Of Competition; co-creating unique value with customers”

“The Future Of Competition; co-creating unique value with customers” by C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy

I am biased.. I love the Social Networking / CRM convergence space and because of that it is very appealing to me how this books takes farther and deeper (with what some may call excruciating detail and complexity) ideas originally presented in the cluetrain manifesto and other books; here a few snippets (paraphrasing in some) to open your appetite and convince you to check this very worthy book:

·         Value does not reside in a physical product or service only; value lies on the co-creation experience of a specific customer, at a specific point in time, at an specific location in the context on an specific event.

·         Co-creation is not outsourcing of work to the customer (i.e. self help support on its own) and it is not a scripting of events orchestrated by the firm for the customer.

·         The experience space, this virtual location where participants interact to give and reap value will evolve into a multi-nodal space for multiple firms and multiple customers that change roles on an ongoing basis.

·         Thus to build an effective experience network we need to learn how to draw and collaborate with communities and firms outside our own.

·         Old CRM systems are created with the customer as a target and the company as the center; future ones must center on the customer experience/event and enable all participants engagements to be accounted for and facilitated.

·         Companies are recognizing the customer as a source of competencies; for example:

o   Eli Lilly’s Innocentive Program

o   Counter Strike & Half Life

·         Managers will need to learn new skills; that will allow them to connect both with individual customers as well as thematic communities.

·         “The non-invented here syndrome is an impediment; managers are simply not accustomed to accepting, supporting and promulgating ideas that come from outside their department… let alone their company”.

Filiberto Selvas