Co-designing modes of cooperation at the customer interface: learning from exploratory research

The objective of this paper is to explore new modes of cooperation among customers, retailers and manufacturers resulting from co-design – a customer-centric business strategy. Co-design activities are performed at dedicated interfaces and allow for the joint development of products and solutions between individual customers and manufacturers. Our research on co-design is based on a deep interaction with case companies, making the research itself a further collaborative effort. In this paper, we first explore collaboration challenges with a case company introducing customer co-design (Adidas AG, a sport goods manufacturer). In a second step of exploration, we use findings from a larger database of case studies on customer co-design or mass customization to identify four basic modes of cooperation between customers, retailers and manufacturers. In a final step, the understanding gained from this differentiation is refined using the Adidas case. From the perspective of management practice, our research contributes to a better understanding of the collaboration challenges following a customer-centric business strategy. From the perspective of management research, the paper provides both a conceptual model of cooperation demands at the customer interface and a methodological framework for collaborative management research between academics and companies.