A Virtual Customer Environment (VCE) is a
web forum to facilitate
customer
In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a Client (business), client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a Good (economics), good, service (economics), service, product (business), product, or an Intellectual prop ...
co-innovation or
user innovation
__NOTOC__
User innovation refers to innovation by intermediate users (e.g. user firms) or consumer users (individual end-users or user communities), rather than by suppliers (producers or manufacturers). This is a concept closely aligned to co- ...
.
Customers can partner with companies in different phases of product (or service) innovation - in product
ideation, in
product design
Product design is the process of creating new Product (business), products for businesses to sell to their customers. It involves the generation and development of ideas through a systematic process that leads to the creation of innovative products ...
& development, in product testing, and in product diffusion. VCEs can be designed so as to facilitate these different customer co-innovation roles. Examples of customer co-innovation through VCEs include Microsoft and the
MVP forum; Nokia and the Concept Lounge; Ducati and the Tech Cafe; etc.
The term 'Virtual Customer Environment' was introduced by Satish Nambisan of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
.
Research published in MIT Sloan Management Review in 2008 focused on customer experience in such virtual customer environments and how companies can establish their VCEs so as to provide positive customer experiences in value co-creation.
See also
*
Ideas bank
An ideas bank is a widely available shared resource, usually a website, where people post, exchange, discuss, and polish new ideas. Some ideas banks are used to develop new inventions or technologies. Many corporations have installed internal id ...
*
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...
*
Innovation management
Innovation management is a combination of the management of innovation processes, and change management. It refers to product, business process, marketing and organizational innovation. Innovation management is the subject of ISO 56000 (formerl ...
* ''
Wisdom of crowds
''The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations'', published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, ...
''
References
{{reflist
;General
*Sawhney, M., G. Verona, & E. Prandelli. (2005) “Collaborating to create: The Internet as a platform for customer engagement in product innovation,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 19 (4), 4–17.
External links
Research Channel Video on VCE
Innovation
Customer communications management