Downsizing and Value Creation at General Dynamics: A PE‐Like Solution for Industries That Must Shrink

Is it possible to transform stone into a technological and innovative device? The meeting with one of the main stone transformers in Europe produced the intention of a disruptive operation that could affect the strategy of the whole company. A contagious singularity. By intertwining LEAN methodologies and the human-centric approach of design thinking, we mapped the value creation in the company activating a dialogue with the workers and the management, listening to people, asking for ambitions, discovering problems and the potential of production. This qualitative and quantitative analysis conducted with a multidisciplinary approach by designers, architects and marketing strategists allowed us to define a new method. We used it to design a platform that could let all the players express their potential to the maximum. This is how the group's research laboratory was born, with the aim of promoting the relationship between humans and stone through product innovation. With this goal, we coordinated the new team, developing technologies that would allow creating a more direct relationship between man and surface, making the stone reactive. The result was the first responsive kitchen ever.

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Change of Attitude, Technology and Practice: Identifying the Change for Increased Value Creation with Customer Co-creation

TRANSNATIONAL MARKETING JOURNAL ◽

10.33182/tmj.v5i1.388 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 70-82

Author(s):

Soumi Paul ◽

Paola Peretti ◽

Saroj Kumar Datta

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

New Product Development ◽

Value Creation ◽

Large Scale ◽

Customer Orientation ◽

Customer Relationships ◽

Future Research ◽

Management Competencies ◽

Business Decisions ◽

Prime Concern

Building customer relationships and customer equity is the prime concern in today’s business decisions. The emergence of internet, especially social media like Facebook and Twitter, changed traditional marketing thought to a great extent. The importance of customer orientation is reflected in the axiom, “The customer is the king”. A good number of organizations are engaging customers in their new product development activities via social media platforms. Co-creation, a new perspective in which customers are active co-creators of the products they buy and use, is currently challenging the traditional paradigm. The concept of co-creation involving the customer’s knowledge, creativity and judgment to generate value is considered not only an upcoming trend that introduces new products or services but also fitting their need and increasing value for money. Knowledge and innovation are inseparable. Knowledge management competencies and capacities are essential to any organization that aspires to be distinguished and innovative. The present work is an attempt to identify the change in value creation procedure along with one area of business, where co-creation can return significant dividends. It is on extending the brand or brand category through brand extension or line extension. This article, through an in depth literature review analysis, identifies the changes in every perspective of this paradigm shift and it presents a conceptual model of company-customer-brand-based co-creation activity via social media. The main objective is offering an agenda for future research of this emerging trend and ensuring the way to move from theory to practice. The paper acts as a proposal; it allows the organization to go for this change in a large scale and obtain early feedback on the idea presented.

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