Collaborative Customer Relationship Management-Co-Creation and Collaboration through Online Communities

There are four trends reshaping the world of business-technological advances and the speed with which new technologies are created and copied, the loss of geographic advantage resulting from globalization, the shake-up of traditionally stable industries as a result of deregulation and the rising power of the consumer and their ability to get what they want, when they want it, from whomever they want. With this in mind, the collaboration experience becomes one of the greatest competitive aspects for a business’s survival. This has made companies realize the significance of the two levers of Customer Value Management –Co-creation and Collaboration. Further, with the internet having built an open network where information can flow freely, innovation, entrepreneurship and democracy are fast thriving over the world. Self directed co-creation is a wide range of consumer activities that amount to consumer-side production of value. Thus individuals, online communities have become a considerable prolific force in ecommerce. This research paper details the usage of online communities as tool for co-creation and collaboration The research study further classifies the online communities of organizations on the basis of their scores on co-creation and collaboration and further goes on to develop a Community Co-creation and Collaboration Matrix (CCCM). The online communities which depict a high score on co-creation and collaboration are the most desirable from the organization’s perspective. They facilitate a dynamic environment in terms of reciprocity and optimal level of customization for a win-win organization-community member relationship. Co-creation and collaboration is the strategic outcome of collaborative customer relationship management. Thus online communities can be used to achieve the two important functions of Customer Relationship Management i.e. co-creation and collaboration. Shirin Alavi Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, India