Crowdsourcing - a Tool with manifold benefits
Currently crowdsourcing is a topic of discussion - often positively, sometimes negatively connoted. The German magazine "profits" recently published an article (in German) highlighting the advantages of crowdsourcing in product development. Dr. Christoph Meili, CEO of the Innovation Society, St.Gallen describes the reasons behind the common mistrust of many companies regarding crowdsourcing-instruments.
The article presents two companies that have successfully developed products in cooperation with a "crowd" in the past. An enormous benefit, emphasized by both Christian Seltenhammer, CEO of Hibiscarin and Susanne Bothfeld, product manager at DM, is the possibility of acquiring new groups of customers quickly. Besides, there are the obvious advantages of a multitude of ideas and creative minds being available. The use of crowdsourcing-instruments also provides the chance to strengthen responsiveness to customer preferences and partly redundantizes conventional market research instruments. A further advantage consists of the relatively low costs of crowdsourcing-instruments. On the other hand, they are rather time-consuming, since interactivity and communication with the "crowd" are essential characteristics of the instrument. The phrasing of the task assigned to the "crowd" is exceedingly important as well. A company that fails in this aspect will not be satisfied with the results developed by the "crowd", says Dr.Christoph Meili, author of the Open Innovation Monitor. Seltenhammer stresses how crucial it is to clarify trademark and copyrights preliminary to the use of the tool, otherwise it is possible that more harm than good is done. The still existing suspicion towards crowdsourcing is caused by persistent skepticism concerning intellectual property rights, explains Dr. Christoph Meili. A successful use of crowdsourcing demands forthrightness and transparency.
Read here the entire article (in German)...
Visit the ideafarm, the crowdsourcing platform of the Innovations Society (in German)
Source: PROFITS (5/2014): Kunden mit Fantasie (S. 28-30)
Image Source: Open Innovation Monitor, 2012