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.