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Complete co-creation refers to the transparent process of value creation in ongoing, productive collaboration with, and supported by all relevant parties, with end-users playing a central role. It has been developed as an approach to resolve discrepancies between customer or consumer expectations, and organisational offerings. It is a practical answer to the predominantly academic and holistic understanding of co-creation as a management or economic strategy.

Origins of the term
Recent years have witnessed an increase of people thinking and writing about co-creation and many different meanings are appointed to this term. These vary from market research to crowdsourcing, from design thinking to open innovation, and from participating research, co-design and participatory design to organisational collaboration.

The term complete co-creation was first coined in an article in 2013 by Maarten Pieters and Stefanie Jansen, aiming to create clarity for organisations who struggled with implementing co-creation into their daily operations.

Complete co-creation builds upon the works of scholars C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy who first popularised the concept of co-creation in their 2000 Harvard Business Review article, "Co-Opting Customer Competence".

Definition and premises
Complete co-creation means actively involving end-users and other relevant parties in a development process, from the identification of a challenge to the implementation and tracking of its solution. Complete co-creation is foremost a procedure which may evolve into an organisational principle, and potentially even a co-ownership.

Within the study of Pieters and Jansen, they defined co-creation as “Complete co-creation is the transparent process of value creation in ongoing, productive collaboration with, and supported by all relevant parties, with end-users playing a central role.” (Jansen and Pieters, 2017, p. 15).

A central premise of complete co-creation is that neither the various organisations in a value chain, nor the end-users can reach the ideal solution to any challenge without collaborating. This is because involved organisations and end-users have complementary knowledge and skills. The knowledge of product development and design, markets, suppliers, and sales channels is embedded within organisations.

In addition, end-users possess the key to their deeper motivations, dreams, and fears. Moreover, only end-users can provide a competitor analysis from a client’s perspective, know better than anyone how their decision making tree works, and can start word-of- mouth for the solution. This means that if all relevant parties – including the end-users – will work together on a given challenge, the solution will not only optimally serve the end-users’ needs, but will also gain acceptance and involvement of all parties responsible for its success.

Direct and indirect influence during complete co-creation
Complete co-creation does not mean that organisations share all decision making with end-users and other relevant parties. Boards of directors are responsible for the choices of the organisation, also when it applies complete co-creation. Complete co-creation does imply, however, that end-users and other relevant parties are actively involved in different ways and in various organisational processes. That means they are of direct and indirect influence on decisions and developments.

Indirect influence works through information and inspiration provided by the diverse parties involved, each from their own unique perspective and knowledge frame.

Direct influence works through concrete ideas and advice, as well as through active involvement in the primary process of the organisation.

Complete co-creation as related to other types of creation
The main difference between complete co-creation and other ways to solve challenges is the productive collaboration between one or more organisations, end-users, and other relevant parties throughout the development process.

Unique characteristics of complete co-creation
The most distinguishing characteristic of complete co-creation is the central role of end-users. Activities focused on value creation that fail to involve end-users, do not qualify as complete co-creation. End-users can add to a co-creation process in different ways, online as well as offline. Think active participation in creative sessions, optimisation sessions, creative briefs, presentations to stakeholders, etc.

Another distinguishing characteristic is productivity. That refers to the premise that complete co-creation always leads to an implementable solution. When end-users and other relevant parties were involved, but failed to implement a concrete solution, the process does not qualify as complete co-creation.

Design thinking and complete co-creation
The popular movement of design thinking focuses on a creative, out of the box approach of challenges. User experience is its vantage point. Qualitative exploratory market research is the usual tool for gaining understanding of user experience, followed by concept testing. Although design thinking is definitely a customer-centric approach and can very well be used to shape a complete co-creation trajectory, end-user involvement does not automatically make it co-creation. Only if end-users play an active, co-developing role in every step of the development process does design thinking fit the criteria for complete co-creation.

The three C’s for effect maximization
Customer connection – an ongoing relationship between organisation and end-users – is a precondition for complete co-creation. Customer insight – a deep understanding of end-users’ motivations – is the central guideline for complete co-creation. Customer connection, customer insight, and complete co-creation combined are referred to by Pieters and Jansen as the three C’s for effect maximisation.

There are three reasons why consistent implementation of the three C’s leads to effect maximisation.


 * 1) Organisations that maintain continuous contact with their end-users through various online and offline channels know the unmet needs in their market and can respond to these faster and with greater relevance than their less customer connected competitors.
 * 2) Organisations that take customer insight as a basis for their decision making are recognisable and attractive to their end-users.
 * 3) Organisations that structurally embrace customer connection, customer insight, and complete co-creation create maximum relevance for their end-users, which often comes with sympathy, resulting in end-user loyalty.

The customer connection pyramid
The Customer Connection Pyramid shows the development of organisations from customer connection through customer insight to complete co-creation. The pyramid visualises how a solid basis of customer connection and customer insight needs to be founded before starting a co-creation trajectory, and that a good way to ease into complete co-creation is to first perform several co-creation pilots. Safe experiments with direct collaboration between organisations and end-users provide the needed trust to fully embrace complete co-creation.

IMAGE PYRAMID

The 7 principles of complete co-creation
Pieters and Jansen define seven principles that describe the prerequisites necessary for a development process to be called complete co-creation.


 * 1) Together. Complete co-creation is based on equal collaboration between all relevant internal and external parties.
 * 2) With end-users. In complete co-creation, end-users always play a central role.
 * 3) Ongoing. End-users and other relevant parties participate consistently in every  phase of the complete co-creation process.
 * 4) Productive. Complete co-creation leads to implementation of the co-created solution.
 * 5) Transparent. In complete co-creation, relevant information is accessible to all participants.
 * 6) Supported. Complete co-creation is supported by all involved parties.
 * 7) Value-driven. Complete co-creation results in value creation for end-users, the involved organisations, and the planet.