Selangor Journal

Shaping New Landscape with Co-creation

 

Sheila Singam advocates a new strategy for government agencies to remain relevant to the rakyat.

 

The date 9th May 2018 is one that will go down in the annals of Malaysian history as a day when the power of the people reigned supreme. You know what happened. You probably had a hand in the political tsunami that swept through Malaysia, effectively wiping away the existence of a lumbering 60-year-old behemoth that had become irrelevant to the needs of the nation.

No one thought it would happen. But it did, largely through the efforts of a populace that was fed-up to the eyeballs at the overt displays of arrogance and corruption by the former ruling party, and its complete disregard for the sentiments – and intelligence of the rakyat.

It was the collective will of the people that gave the Pakatan Harapan coalition its landslide victory, driving home to our politicians the point that in this day and age, rulers must take into consideration the thoughts and feelings of their citizenry if they are to remain on top.

It is a concept that many corporations around the world are beginning to recognise as vital to their existence. Gone are the days when companies could design and deliver any type of products and services they wanted and create a hype to convince people to buy. Today’s consumer is savvy, informed and totally clued in about what he or she wants… or doesn’t want, and is not shy about shouting it out on social media. A post that goes viral on the Internet about how a product or service fails to meet expectations can spell the death knell for a business.

Companies that innovate stay the course. Companies that don’t fade away into the sunset. Enter the concept of co-creation, which more and more companies that want to remain relevant are beginning to embrace.

Co-creation is an innovative, collaborative technique where companies invite experts and stakeholders, predominantly customers or suppliers, to share ideas about its products and services. The purpose is to allow the developers and designers of new concepts, products and services to come up with new ideas that are more relevant to the needs of end-users and that jointly create more value for both the vendor and customers.

Co-creation assists companies to get meaningful insights into what customers want directly from them. It provides valuable demographic insight into what different age groups of customers like and helps the company cater to each one or focus on the most profitable one.

In addition, it enables companies to innovate by gathering creative, value-adding ideas from various stakeholders not only on products and services, but also on packaging, sales channels and marketing campaigns. Instead of getting feedback after products have been launched and then going back to the drawing board with improved versions, it enables customers to give their opinions on various prototypes, leading to the best version being launched once and for all and saving on costs, while accelerating the time to market.

Many big brands, including Coca Cola, DHL and Lego are already using co-creation in product development and marketing.

You’re probably wondering by now how a strategy that is being successfully used in commerce has anything to do with the spanking new Pakatan Harapan government. Well, other than a few stalwarts who have helmed Ministries or states before, a fair number of Pakatan Harapan Ministers are new to the job.

While not questioning their intelligence or ability to do the job, it cannot be denied that many are wading into new territory and have to rely on the civil servants manning their ministries to bring them up to scratch. Thing is, many of these officials have served a previous government entrenched in bureaucracy and corruption and may not be the best people for thinking out of the box.

So why not utilise co-creation? Why not turn to the stakeholders themselves as the source of information and ideas?

“Our Ministers should be able to identify the major stakeholders and to map out their importance and the extent of their influence.” – Sheila Singam

Next is to prepare a plan for engagement for each stakeholder group to garner opinions, ideas and even criticism because Lord knows, ignoring criticism can kill your political party.

This was a strategy that was successfully used by new Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran at a recent townhall session with Human Resources Development Fund senior officials and registered training providers. Having got wind about disgruntlement amongst the ranks of training providers about irregularities in HRDF’s practices, the Minister took the time to listen to several issues, giving him a good grasp of what needed to be addressed to clean up the agency.

What the session did other than flushing out HRDF’s indiscretions was to gain Kulasegaran a lot of goodwill from this group of stakeholders. While not all the issues could be cleared up during the session, people left the meeting with a good feeling – the feeling one gets when getting something off one’s chest to a person in authority, if you know what I mean.

Co-creation as a tool for government is not a new concept. It is being used in countries like Britain, France, the United States and Brazil to deal with issues like unemployment, promoting local businesses, creating new industries, technology deployment and others.

In Brazil, the state of Rio Grande do Sul engages citizens in co-creation through four channels. In the first, the governor of the state visits several cities and conducts workshops that allow open discussions with citizens. The second channel is an online tool called The Governor Asks, where the governor presents a problem and invites potential solutions. The third channel is The Governor Responds, where he answers questions posed by citizens, sometimes through a video clip. The fourth channel, The Government Listens, uses social media to enable ongoing dialogue that helps the governor and his team identify emerging issues.

Many public sector organisations in Malaysia are in need of an overhaul. Whatever the co-creation tools used, it cannot be denied that they can be pretty effective at helping public sector agencies get a grasp of what the people want. Co-creation can provide a powerful way for government entities to migrate from a process-centric model to a people-centric model. It is, after all, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “a government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Lincoln knew a thing or two when he added that such a government “shall not perish from this earth.”

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