the nature of the engagement between management and all co-creators." This is particularly true of the employees.[13} As with corporate transformations generally, it is often a crisis that tends to trigger the process, and Dell and Starbucks are striking examples of companies that recently turned to co-creation to help transform their stalling fortunes. ironically, both had long been known for strong customer service, but in the case of Dell, it was customer service on the company's terms, while Starbuck's relentless • drive for growth had begun to !!commoditize" the customer experience. Dell's first steps to recovery began when Michael Dell had his own epiphany, prompted by the appearance of a complaint blog, "Dell Hell," on the Internet. Howard Schultz began the Starbuck's revival with an invitation to his customers to "help us transform the future of Starbucks with your ideas — and build on our histOry of co-creating the Starbucks Experience together." Both companies set up web-based eVgement.platforms to help kick start the process.[ 14] More broadly, in terms of fully ernbiValing the co-creation principle to drive enterprise transformation, companies like Cisco arefeading the way [see box, "The transformation to co-creation at Cisco").
The "power of pull" and the potential for "increasing returns"
, • Co-creation can apply to any business, large or small whose customers have "experiences" and interactions. Moreover, customer engagement 'cad, take many forms, from face-to-face meetings involving a handful of people to Weti.eriabled, large-scale social interactions, involving many thousands.[151 The foundation kir their effectiveness was identified in C.K. Prahalad's original DART principles [DART = Dialogue, AcCest, Reflexivity, Transparency). For co-creation to work, it's top leadership's responsibility to ensure that company policies: N Promote "Dialogue" so people can share and communicate and alsO "make sense of the context through conversation." ■ Provide sufficient "Access" so that participants can not only to use the content and also modify and extend it. • • Foster "Reflexivity" or reflective learning, so that the inputs •or•participants and their interactions can be used to both improve the content and the experience of the users themselves.
▪ Encourage "Transparency," to gain trust and establish authenticity. The challenge of how to create effective engagement also lies at the heart of The Power of Pull. The central thesis of this book is that we are rapidly moving away from the world of "push" — the mass production system where management elites developed the program and structures into which employees were required "to fit," while customer's Were•viewed as passive consumers of value, whose needs were to be "anticipated and shaped ": by . centralized planning (see -Exhibit 2).
According to The Power of Pull we are already in the throes of what ttjeaUthors call "The. Big Shift," a major inflection in the global business landscape.that has, for some time tiPen coming at us in successive, but overlapping waves.[16) The first wave is the change.already being wrought by the advancing march of trade liberalization and repid:00;.tetoprilents*ttie digital infrastruCture delivering huge price/performance gains in our ai:iility'to prode.0•..00.fe • and transport data Both helped to lower barriers to market entry: and resource mobility across the globe, making the world of business ever more dynaMiC anCriess predicf4*. The second wave is the shift in competitive significance away frOm the ability to existing stocks of proprietary knowledge towards a capacity to create new knoWledge.on a • continuing basis through harnessing emerging knowledge flows.M •••• • These first two waves are already changing the balance of comkitive. advantage towards an operating model based on the principle of "pull," where organizatiOns needIO learn hp*: to "pull" together, and mobiliZe aS-h6eded; The resources to ifidet.ttre-itraltiaiid§.-bf bible. • engaged consumers, responsively and flexibly as they unfold. The resource that is. most. - ..• ;