Co-creation with the customer: a strategy for organisation learning and innovation

An organisation should have the ability to innovate and react to dynamic market demands. The traditional learning method can no longer cope with the market's high demand, which requires fast and just-in-time learning. Today, customers are competent about the products and services a company provides. As a result, organisations have to come up with new learning strategies in order to create new knowledge services and products. Organisations learn through having dialogues with customers and exchanging opinions and experiences with them. This method is called 'co-creation'. Co-creation benefits an organisation and its employees, as it provides just-in-time knowledge. At the same time, in effect of the co-creation process' customers' involvement increased in the making and developing of the products or services that they purchase, thus customers have the opportunity to personally experience the process of service enhancement. This paper depicts the co-creation process adopted by a service-centric firm. The company has consultations in art practices as its main business activity. Through the sharing of customer knowledge and consultant know-how, both parties learn and benefit from each other. This paper will also explain the conversion from customer knowledge to knowledge that employees can learn and integrate to enhance their services.