Cocreation.Info

Although co-creation has become very popular in marketing field recently, we do not see a lot of co-creation examples in the automotive industry. One of such examples is the BMW’s Co-Creation Lab. In this co-creation initiative entrants are encouraged to exchange innovative ideas on the interior vehicle design. The lab is equipped with special tools that facilitate the co-creation process in terms of creative realization of the proposals. Such co-creation initiatives give chance to young talents to demonstrate their design skills as well as provide BMW with innovative insights to the interior design of a vehicle.
Following this co-creative initiative a lot of conversations have risen and blogs opened to discuss different ideas related to the Co-creation Lab. The Co-Creation Lab blogs have become a meeting place for people with high interest in cars, open to share their ideas and opinions. However, not all car manufacturers are realizing the potentials that are hidden under co-creation initiatives.
When we say co-creation, we usually understand the value creation between the company and the customer. Today I want to speak about value co-creation as a result of strategic partnership between a small car manufacturer in Uzbekistan and an automotive giant General Motors Corporation.
Although not that advanced in the innovative technologies and know-how, Uzbek vehicle manufacturer (UzDaewoo) was able to conquer Russian market with its vehicles produced under the license agreement from Korean “Daewoo Corporation”. This was the result of intensive and collaborative work with the distribution network in the export markets. As a result, the company was able to achieve its maximum production capacity of 200K per year and achieve exports of 110K vehicles to CIS countries.
However, the company did not possess sufficient technological know-how and engineering base to develop its own new vehicle models and grow on its own. Thus, in 2007 the company married to the General Motors corporation, which was considered the rebirth stage of the company lifecycle. The new JV was named GM Uzbekistan (GMUZ). The strategic partnership entailed creation of complete infrastructure for full cycle vehicle production and all the way from supplier relationship building to distribution network development. As a result, parties agreed to introduce two new global platform vehicles that would provide the survival of the Uzbek company for at least next 10 years in the highly competitive automotive market.
Exports play huge role for GMUZ as around 50% of the vehicle parts are imported from abroad which creates demand for earning hard currency.
Since 2007 the strategic partnership has realizes many co-creative ideas and projects. To list few of them, GMUZ with the support of GM was able to facelift its legacy model – Nexia which was a step to prolonging the life of the model. Moreover, as the emission regulations got stricter and stricter in the exports markets the engineeres from both parties worked together in order to meet those new safety and emission requirements. Additionally, in order to develop the production of automotive parts inside the country the agreement was reached to build a new engine (1st stage) and transmission (2nd stage) factories.
The specialists from GM have been working with local suppliers to implement new up-to-date technologies and management systems in their operations. To my eyes, all of the above mentioned achievements and hard work is the result of co-creation initiatives in the face of strategic partnership.