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Co‐creating unique value with customers

C.K. Prahalad (C.K. Prahalad is the Harvey Fruehauf Professor of Business University of Michigan Business School. An internationally recognized lecturer and consultant. Professor Prahalad is the co‐author of the influential Competing for the Future (Harvard Business School Press, 1994). This article is based on the authors’ book The Future of Competition: Co‐Creating Unique Value with Customers (Harvard Business School Press, 2004).)
Venkat Ramaswamy (Venkat Ramaswamy is the Michael and Mary Hallman Fellow of Electronic Business and Professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan Business School.)

Strategy & Leadership

ISSN: 1087-8572

Article publication date: 1 June 2004

67012

Abstract

The traditional system of company‐centric value creation (that has served us so well over the past 100 years) is becoming obsolete. Leaders now need a new frame of reference for value creation. In the emergent economy, competition will center on personalized co‐creation experiences, resulting in value that is truly unique to each individual. The authors see a new frontier in value creation emerging, replete with fresh opportunities. In this new frontier the role of the consumer has changed from isolated to connected, from unaware to informed, from passive to active. As a result, companies can no longer act autonomously, designing products, developing production processes, crafting marketing messages, and controlling sales channels with little or no interference from consumers. Armed with new tools and dissatisfied with available choices, consumers want to interact with firms and thereby co‐create value. The use of interaction as a basis for co‐creation is at the crux of our emerging reality. The co‐creation experience of the consumer becomes the very basis of value. The authors offer a DART model for managing co‐creation of value processes.

Keywords

Citation

Prahalad, C.K. and Ramaswamy, V. (2004), "Co‐creating unique value with customers", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 4-9. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570410699249

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Authors

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