Customer Reviews

The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers

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Alvin Toffler has indicated customization is future trend. He is(was) right.

The future of competition shows what, why, and how ( sometimes, who) about the future of product and service. What a corporation must do in order to integrate cusomter's experience into their production process and how to organize the company in order to do it. A must read book for 21st century human, why? because any interaction is an experience and if you extend the metaphor of product, any interaction is a 'product'. If you have been of good reputation, you will 'sell' well on whaterver you say or do. Because people 'buy' it.

I was left with the feeling that all of this has been said before in one form or another, Where it was ' new' there are other who have already explored the space ( eg The Suport Economy by Shoshana Zuboff) There are two many big words hidding little concepts. The case studies are simplistic and look to the past rather than casting light on the future. This will be another 'fad" and like all fads find its place in the dustbins of business books

Co-written by C. K. Prahalad (Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration, University of Michigan Business School) and Venkat Ramaswamy (Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow of Electronic Business and Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan Business School), The Future Of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers offers readers a stimulating look at a fascinating shift away from the firm-centric view of value creation, toward the possibilities opened by new technologies that allow consumers themselves to interact with and directly add value to their chosen product. Drawing upon real-life examples, and focusing on the key foundations of co-creation - dialogue, access, risk assessment, and transparency, The Future Of Competition offers a transforming and revolutionary wealth of insights into commercial and marketplace trends of the present and the near future.

The content of this "text" is rich with pointers for those who will format strategic decisions in the future. However, it would seem to challenge the reader to probe the true value of the writers. As the reviewer from Dallas infers, the message is there but the packaging leaves something to be desired. As a university professor who teaches strategic thinking, I see this book as one of the reasons that executives and MBA students resist reading academic pieces: the task is greater than the payoff!!

These two professors from the University of Michigan Business School have written a great business strategy book. In our World, every products and services appear to become commoditized at the speed of light shortly after their innovation.

These two authors show how a business can differentiate itself and offer a substantial value added. By delivering superior goods and services, these will not be subject to commodity pricing anymore, and will reward their respective companies with premium pricing, higher ROE, and higher shareholder value.

The value added comes from involving the customer in co-designing the product he wants, and servicing the product with the customer's ongoing online feedback. The author gives several examples of companies that are using these practices of the future today. Sumerset Houseboats, a houseboat construction company, actively engages its customers in the boat designing process. Deere, the farming equipment manufacturer, has developed a GPS system that monitors and diagnoses farming equipment usage and equipment problems by its farming customers.

There is no question that such intense customer centric practices represent substantial competitive edges. The companies that can innovate and deliver such services at a profit will become the winners of tomorrow.

Imagine if nowadays you could truly benefit of such troubleshooting services on your home PC. Offsite, the computer manufacturer would monitor that the latest virus, bugs, spyware have not infected your system. If it did, it would clean up your system automatically and restore it to health. Would not you think that such a PC would be worth a 100% mark up over the current commoditized PC that typically falls apart within months after being attacked endlessly by bugs.

The type of co-created added value the two authors talk about is the best step forward in protecting the U.S. technological lead going forward. The companies that do that well will survive and thrive. The ones who do not will see their products being taken away by lower cost competitors delivering the same commoditized products utilizing Chinese manufacturing and Indian programming. Given that the two professors are of Indian origins, no one can argue they did not give us a fair warning.

This book is well written and very innovative. If you are an entrepreneur, business strategist, business consultant, MBA student or professor, this is a must read. If you are none of those, it is still a very interesting and important book showing a good roadmap on how the U.S. can maintain its technological leadership.

Preceding review by that "reader from Dallas" simply demonstrates how sometimes consumers from outside of the target market of an offering might mistakenly mix into the community to misrepresent and bad-mouth the premise and potential of a genuinely well-meaning product/service/idea. It's especially sad because the authors explicitly state in the preface of the book, who the book is for, what it tries to achieve, and what it does not claim to be. Such frank disclosures and disclaimers are not something we are accustomed to in this crowded yet-another-snake-oil business books marketplace. How often do we come across a business book that is as deeply engaging, intellectual, coherent, and provocative as this one? At any rate, we live in a connected world and it is simply impossible to predict where, how, what your intended (and non-intended) consumers are saying about your product. By the way, this insight itself is one of the central points the authors make in that book.

Contrary to what that reader from Dallas argues, the book actually meets and exceeds the premise and objectives it sets for itself. Let me highlight some of these:
"This book sets the agenda for top management for co-creating the future."
"Our task is here to 'amplify weak signals' from a diversity of institutions, industries, and countries, and to represent readers with a new frame of reference for value creation."
"While we do not suggest a revolution, we do see wide departures from traditional ways of sensing, thinking, and doing."
"Throughout this book, we use a lot of examples as thinking props to convey our perspective and key ideas, not to illustrate best practices."

Given all these disclaimers, it is not fair to criticize a book for not being what it never claims to be in the first place. I advise the readers to carefully read the preface before considering buying or reading the book. If you determine you fit the profile of the intended readers and engage the book with the right mind set, you will be well rewarded with your investment.

I bought this book with a specific goal in mind - - finding specific examples of how companies are inviting their customers into the design of their products and services in innovative ways.

There is a little bit of that in here - - but you must muddle through poorly highly academic/esoteric/jargon-laden prose to find it (For example: "Thus, a key variable in the quality of the transaction experience is consumer heterogeneity").

Beyond that, the book goes way off focus at times, spending pages, for example, to discuss how a company built an information network that let its employees worldwide find a solution together for a particular customer problem. That is neither new, nor "co-creating value WITH CUSTOMERS."

Most disappointing of all - - there is lots of discussion about what companies are doing, but virtually no ROI info attached to prove that what they are doing is really better for the companies' bottom lines or shareholders.

What the authors are saying about the future of the relationship between companies and their customers is fundamentally true. It is a shame they did not engage a stronger writer and/or editor who could help them make their case more persuasively.

This book takes the concept of sense-and-respond to a new level. Filled with relevant and supportive examples, the authors compel us to move away from traditional "company think" to "customer think." From the dated notions of value embedded products and services to crafting heterogeneous customer experiences. They not only explain why but how--how refreshing.