Sales Co-Creation

SALES
CO-CREATION
Discover
8 ways salesorganisations canco-create value withtheir customers.

SALES CO-CREATION
is part of the SALES 2020
research project which
started in 2010 in
collaboration with:

The aims of the project was to:
•  Identify the differences between value based selling and
value co-creating
•  Identify how sales organisations can apply the principles of
value co-creation in their sales organisation.

WHY DO WE NEED
A NEW SALES APPROACH?

…because sales people are ﬁnding
it increasingly diﬃcult to add value
to their customers.
See our Sales 2020
presentation for
more information.

As a result their products are
considered commodities making
the price the main factor
for diﬀerentiation.

One of the reasons is due the
way in which we deﬁne value.

For most organisations value is
created by producing products
and services which customers
want to buy.

Customers are considered
as targets …

… which need to be persuaded to
buy their products and services.

Selling is therefore considered a cost,
needed to distribute products and
services into the market.

This view is highly product centric.

WHAT IS VALUE FROM A
CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE?

“Value for customers means that after they
have been assisted by a full or self-service
process they are or feel better oﬀ than before.”
Chris&an
Grönroos

This implies that value is created when
the customer uses or consumes
a product or service.

As a result products are merely
vehicles to produce a service helping
customers to get their job done.

This means that the role of sales people
is to help their customers to get their
jobs done and provide them with a
good experience.

This implies that by getting involved in
their customer’s jobs, sales people will
co-create value with their customer.

WHAT ARE THE
4 PRINCIPLES
OF VALUE CO-CREATION
THAT SALES EXECUTIVES
NEED TO KNOW?

Principle #1
FOCUS ON THE END
AND NOT ON THE MEANS

“… here are the tools you asked for.
Good luck with them!”

“… thanks for coming to show us how to
use the tools to get our job done.”

The process lasts until the
customer obtains the value
the sales person promised them.
USE Value
The
Long
Sales
Funnel
SALES
Sales
Approach
Co-Creation
Approach

Principle #2
TURN THE
CUSTOMER INTO AN
ACTIVE PARTICIPANT

“… Let me tell you what we need.”

“Let’s ﬁgure it out together.”
Value Co Creation
Approach

Co Creation requires customers to
actively participate in the process.
Sales
Approach
Co-Creation
Approach
INTERVIEW DIALOGUE
ASSEMBLY CO-DESIGN
INTERNAL CO-DEVELOP
Information Gathering
Solution Design
Solutions Development
INFORMANT PARTNERCustomer Role
REACTIVE PRO-ACTIVEUse

Principle #3
DEVELOP VALUE
PROPOSITIONS BASED ON
ORGANISATIONAL
CAPABILITIES.

“These are our products and services.”

“These are the capabilities and
know-how that we have.”

How
can
we
combine

our
capabili0es
and

know
how?
How are my
products solving
your needs?
Co-creation is about
merging capabilities
together to create value.

Principle #4
FOCUS ON LEARNING

“The more we repeat our approach
the better we get at doing it.”

“Each time we co-create with our
customers we develop new capabilities.”

Co-Creation is not about increasing
eﬃciencies but about learning and
increasing capabilities.
LEARNING
CAPABILITIES ACTIVE PARTICIPATION EXPERIENCE

WHAT ARE THE
8 FORMS OF CO-CREATION
THAT SALES ORGANISATIONS CAN USE
WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS?

FORMS OF VALUE CO-CREATION
Crowd
Sourcing
Mass
Customisation
Peer to Peer
Network
Shared
Resources
Open
Innovation
Joint
Ideation
Experience
Centres
Product as
a Service
Icons:
h0p://thenounproject.com

Crowdsourcing is the practice
of obtaining needed services,
ideas, or content by soliciting
contributions from a large
group of people.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
CEO of a large organisation
Functional Job To Be Done by the customer:
“CEO’s want to compare their business outlook
of the future with that of their peers.”
Social Job To Be Done by the customer:
“CEO’s want to impress their customers, suppliers
and partners by participating in the survey. ”
Emotional Job To Be Done by the customer:
“CEO’s want to feel less uncertain about their
business outlook. ”
Many management consulting organisation solicit their customers to share their business outlook with them.
After consolidating these outlooks, they produce their global yearly business reports. Based on this
information they oﬀer their customers the opportunity to benchmarking their business outlook with those of
their peers.
Example: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/en/ceostudy.html
Icons:

What could you source from your
customers and partners to create new
insights to help your customers with?

Mass Customisation is a process
which combines the beneﬁts of
large-scale production with those
of customisation.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
CIO and IT project managers responsible for
implementing ERP solutions in their organisation.
“We want an ERP system which can be tailored easily
to our specific needs”
“We want to impress the users of our ERP system.”
“We want less stress when implementing and
maintaining our ERP system”
ERP software systems consists of different modules which customers can adapt to meet their specifc needs.
These systems rely on smart configuration engines which assits the customer in their decision making as
well as automate the configuration tasks for the system. The production efficiency is highly increased
because the customer is direclty involved in the configuration of the final solution.
Example: http://www.sap.com
Icons:

How could you co-design solutions
with your customers.

Peer to Peer networks are
decentralised networks whereby
all people act as both suppliers and
as consumers to share some
resources (often information).
Icons:

Example
Customer:
Engineers that use Caterpillar’s equipment.
Functional Job:
“I want help to solve some engineering problem
with my equipment.”
“I want to share my knowledge and experience
with others.”
“I want feel like I made a diﬀerence to others.”
The Caterpillar online community is an online B2B forum where professionals who work with caterpillar
equipment can exchange information, ﬁnd answers and get expert advice from their peers. People can give
each other “kudos” on input they valued. They can also identify the response that provided the best solution
to move the discussion further or end it. You do not have to be a caterpillar customer to joint the forum. The
objective, according to caterpillar, is to bring the people in their industry closer together.
Source: forums.cat.com
Example: http://forums.cat.com
Icons:

How could you network your
customers together and leverage
their individual capabilities
to help each other.

Open Innovation is the practice
of innovating with partners inside
and outside the organisation and
sharing risk and rewards with them.
Source: wikipedia

Example
Customer:
Production managers in the textile industry.
“I want to continuously improve our quality,
manufacturing performance and efficiency.”
“We want to show our customers that we are at the
leading edge in terms of technologies used in our
production process.”
“I want feel successful at my job.”
Bekaert is a world market and technology leader in steel wire transformation and coatings, offering a very
wide range of advanced steel wire products in many sectors around the world. For the textile industry, Bekaert
manufactures card clothing products used for carding of staple fibers in short staple, nonwoven, woollen,
semi-worsted and worsted applications. Bekaert developed with a science agency a new carding technology.
This technology platform was tested and further developed in close collaboration with a number of
customers.
Example: http://www.bekeart.com

Could invite your customers to
collaborate in joint innovation
projects with other partners
and customers?

Shared Resources is a practice
where suppliers and customers
share resources in order to
co-create value.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
Retail Manager or Purchasing Manager of a supermarket
chain.
“We need good information to make good decisions.”
“We want to to shows our customers that we have the best
meet in our supermarkets.”
“I want feel less stress managing our meet counters.”
Many product manufacturers in the fast moving consuming industry perform regularly all sorts of consumer
base research. This information can be very valuable for large retailers helping them to better predict future
consumer behaviour and demand for speciﬁc products. By sharing this information with the retailers the
account managers of these product manufacturers are able to participate in their customer’s product
planning process.
Icons:

Which resources, such as market
research information, can you share
with your customers in order to
jointly create new insights.

Joint Ideation is a practice where
suppliers and customers come
together to brainstorm new ideas.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
Business Executives .
“We need to implement our strategy and ideas quickly.”
“We want to involve all the stakeholders in the exercise.”
“We want to feel less stress in getting our strategy up
and running.”
Many system integrators developed business tools and methodologies to help their clients to structure their
ideas and strategies and translate them into projects. One popular service consists of helping organisations to
translate their strategies and ideas into a project roadmap.
Icons:

How could you facilitate joint
ideation sessions with your
customers to come up with new
business solutions?

Experience Centres allow
customers and suppliers to engage
and interact with products and
services in a sensory ways.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
Business and IT Executives within large organisation.
“We need to analyse how new IT innovations can help us
to increase our competitiveness.”
“We want to be seen in the market as modern and
innovative organisation.”
“We want to feel less uncertain when adopting new
technologies.”
One example are CGI’s (former Logica) SPARK centres were executives can come and can have a real
experience with new innovative IT technologies and brainstorm on how these could help them to be more
competitive. Because the technology is so new, customers need to come and see, touch and feel the
technology in order to imagine what they could do with it.
Example: http://www.cgi.com
Icons:

How could you provide your
customers a sensory experience in
order to generate new insights.

Product as a Service is the practice
whereby customers pay for the use
of products or services.
Icons:

Example
Customer:
Truckers Organisations.
“We need to keep our trucks running with as little
interruptions as possible.”
“We want our customers to see that we outsource non
core activities to strong partners.”
“We want to feel less stress managing our trucks.”
Michelin is a French tire producer who launched a tyre outsourcing service for its road transportation
customers. This means that for a monthly fee Michelin does not only supply the tires but also maintain and
repairs them. Such a service requires a vast geographical presence, which is needed to provide the required
maintenance and repair work. This is achieved by converting Michelin’s distribution network into a service
network, which will perform the maintenance and repairs on their behalf. For this solution to work three
parties must collaborate, the customer, the distributor and Michelin, the manufacturer.
Example: http://www.michelintransport.com
Icons:

How would your customers react if you
would change your pricing model from
ownership to pay for use
or pay by outcome?

WHAT IS YOUR
DEFINITION OF VALUE?

DEFINITIONS OF VALUE
PRODUCT CENTRIC
Value is created by
producing products
Customers are targets
The role of the sales force is
to distribute products and
services into the market
CUSTOMER CENTRIC
Value is created
by using products.
Customers are partners
The role of the sales force is to
help customers in getting
their jobs done.
Source:
Vargo
and
Lusch,
2004,
“Service
Dominant
Logic”

Remember:
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill.
They want a quarter-inch hole!”
Theodor
Levi0

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