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ABSTRACT
In today S market a customer buys a product not just for transactional value butfor a value in use. Companies tend to look at the customer as a co-creator of value by engaging with the customers through learning, dialogue, mailers, and social media thereby following a collaborative approach for customizedproducts and services. Accordingly, companies have moved from a post sales reactive strategy, to a presales proactive engagement with the customer leading to reduced dissonance and increased collaborative value creation. This paper critically analyses the essence of collaborative value creation and discusses the critical role of customers, intermediaries, and communication in current business scenario.
Keywords:Cocreation of value, communication, collaborative value creation
INTRODUCTION
Sales today is primarily a function of value that the consumer perceives in the product features, attributes, and the entire value chain. Today it is important to ensure a holistic approach to marketing that aligns and integrates all stake holders including the channels, the sales personnel, the product, the pricing and the promotional aspects towards the company philosophy so that the product/service stands out as distinct in the minds of the consumers. It is also important is to understand the internal customers - both the intermediaries and the company sales personnel. The focus today is to look beyond Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning and focus on value or the utility that the product/service has to offer so that the customer will be able to make a purchase decision after clear evaluation of information available to him/her and the alternatives available thereby.
Today there is a paradigm shift from customers being just offered a product or service, to engaging the customer in creating a value for the obj ect or service. Engagement in creation of value makes the customer a co-creator of value and is being referred to as "Prosumer". To be competitive, today companies, have to move from mass customization to a process of collaborative product development, customer innovation, customer empowerment, and customer involvement in order to have a competitive advantage over the competitors. Today engaging with the customer pre purchase and post sales plays an important role in creating a win-win situation for both the company and the customers.
Pierks et al. (2012) and Hienwarth et al. (2014) focus on the ecosystem,...