Last summer I got involved in a big discussion at the Corante Innovative Marketing Conference about exactly where the responsibility should lie at companies for involving customers in innovation. Our consensus was in the marketing department. We are not the only ones – a new Forrester report on Customer-Driven Innovation concurs: “CMOs need to use their expertise in connecting with customers to lead the way in building bridges between customers and key parts of the organization.”
Customer-Driven Design and Development was prepared exclusively for the CMO Group at Forrester Research, so if you want the whole report, you’ll have to join the CMO group to buy it – however, you can get a free summary brief at this link.
The report includes six case studies of customer-driven design and development initiatives at various companies, as well as:
--Best practices
--Information on common objections CMOs may run into at their companies and how to overcome these
--Specific advice from 25 experts in this space, including both Gwen Ishmael and myself from Decision Analyst, who were interviewed as sources for the report.
--Information on a variety of tactics such as ethnography. online communities and consumer brainstorming (which is, of course, one of the things we do)
--An overview of 18 different vendors (including us!) who can help CMOs with customer-driven innovation initiatives
I have to offer kudoes to author Cindy Commander on this report. She's presented a wealth of information and some thoughtful analysis, including a Customer-Driven Design Maturity Model. Essentially, this is an illustration of how organization progress in their engagement with customers in the co-creation process, from minimal customer engagement through continuous customer engagement. The four stages start at a company-centric orientation and moving toward a customer-centric orientation:
--Stage 1: Customer-tested design and development
--Stage 2: Customer-involved design and development
--Stage 3: Customer-focused design and development
--Stage 4: Customer-driven design and development
If you looked at your company with just this one analytic in mind, what would you find? How far is your company from Stage 4? How close would your company like to be to Stage 4?
If you're serious about customer co-creation, this report would be a worthwhile read. Of course, I've already disclosed that we were sources, but even if we weren't, I would at least take a peek at the free brief!
Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is 
1. Ryan Marle on December 10, 2006 12:47 PM writes...
One of the things that doesn't get factored in nearly as much as it should is other departments and employees in marketing and innovation. The idea oft customer generated innovation assumes that there are creative customers that are able to provide content or innovation and co-create with the company itself. But the best place to start is within the company with it's employees and other departments.
The Marketing Department's role and goal should be shifted from trying to get customers involved to instead come from a point of leadership. Everyone in the company is responsible for creating the company and brand culture. The marketing department's role should be to cultivate it, grow it, provide the environment for it to expand on the inside of the company AT LEAST as much on the outside. Get your whole company aligned with the idea of consistent creativity, provide a forum for growth innovation, integration, and inspiration.
That's ORGANIC, That's POWERFUL.
If you want an obvious example look at Google's system and philosophy of involving and rewarding employees.
Permalink to Comment2. Renee on December 11, 2006 11:21 AM writes...
Thanks, Ryan...that's an interesting perspective. You say, "The Marketing Department's role and goal should be shifted from trying to get customers involved to instead come from a point of leadership." -- the point of having the Marketing Department involved in customer co-creation is that the marketing department is the touchpoint for customer involvement of all kinds within the business. You say "The marketing department's role should be to cultivate it, grow it, provide the environment for it to expand on the inside of the company AT LEAST as much on the outside" -- and I'm not sure I agree with that. It seems to be it would be better if there were a group providing leadership for innovation and creativity, and the marketing department is responsible for customer involvement in such.
But there are lots of ways to do this. Oh, and a question -- do you know if Google's marketing department is the department involved with employee reward and involvement?
Permalink to Comment3. Ron Shevlin on December 28, 2006 8:09 AM writes...
Thanks for the pointer to the Forrester report (side comment: As a regular Forrester client, I wish this stuff was available to the rest of us).
As to marketing's role in co-creation...I think the answer is a definitive "it depends". Specifically, it depends on the role marketing plays today in the organization. For less "strategic" marketing departments (i.e., those either more focused on -- or viewed as focusing on -- areas of marketing like advertising and marcom, then stepping up to the co-creation role may be a first step too far.
Going back to the four stages of the FORR report, two comments: 1) there may be need a Stage 0, where marketing becomes more strategic in the organization, and 2) firms should recognize that as they move through the stages, they don't stop the practices in the previous stages (ie. customer-testing, customer-involvement) but build on those practices.
Ron Shevlin
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4. Ron Shevlin on December 28, 2006 8:11 AM writes...
Thanks for the pointer to the Forrester report (side comment: As a regular Forrester client, I wish this stuff was available to the rest of us).
As to marketing's role in co-creation...I think the answer is a definitive "it depends". Specifically, it depends on the role marketing plays today in the organization. For less "strategic" marketing departments (i.e., those either more focused on -- or viewed as focusing on -- areas of marketing like advertising and marcom, then stepping up to the co-creation role may be a first step too far.
Going back to the four stages of the FORR report, two comments: 1) there may be need a Stage 0, where marketing becomes more strategic in the organization, and 2) firms should recognize that as they move through the stages, they don't stop the practices in the previous stages (ie. customer-testing, customer-involvement) but build on those practices.
Ron Shevlin
Permalink to Commenthttp://marketingroi.wordpress.com