Consumers, said van Karlingen, need to be empowered to create and add value to products themselves, as the evolution of the world wide web creates new opportunities for interaction between products and brands and their end users.
“An important drive in the creation of new, inspiring products and services is the fact that the consumer wants to be part of the production process. In other words, products and services are increasingly the end result of an interaction between producer and consumer,” he says.
He used a variety of examples to illustrate his point, including Swedish homeware giant Ikea. “The company supplies the products, but we have to assemble the wardrobes and chairs ourselves. The benefit for us lies in the price. The benefit for Ikea lies in the production process. At the end of the day, both company and consumer are happy with this approach.
“There are many other examples. At Dell Computers you can build your own PC, the iPod enables you to be your own DJ and BBCi gives freedom of choice on interactive TV. Co-creation is everywhere, but there is a strong similarity between all these forms of co-creation: they are all limited. They all operate within the framework that [the company] has created for the consumer.
“This is not to say that is bad,” he adds, “on the contrary, a great deal of value is added for the consumer. But what we do need to realise is that this co-creation trend has started a movement that can no longer be stopped. Consumers are used to creating value together and in some cases are doing it for themselves.”
Three factors are the driving force behind the development of co-creation, according to van Karlingen: a) the multiform consumer; b) the experience/ right brain economy; and c) technological developments.
But the major driver, he says, is Web 2.0, which serves to indicate that a second phase in the world of the world wide web is underway. “The 2.0 phase is the point where the internet is shaped less by companies and more by consumers.”
He cites Amazon, which only places independent reviews on its website, and Youtube, MySpace and others, which have principally user-driven contents, as the next step. “The freedom offered is many times greater than with the first examples. The movement is from value creation to almost complete freedom for the consumer.
“But it could go even further. What happens if the consumer really does participate in the development of new products?” he asks. “This is by no means a new idea, but actually a concept which lies very close to the original aim of the internet: co-innovation.”
Popular perception that the internet was invented by the US army is a myth, van Karlingen says, explaining that it actually came out of a discovery at the CERN Institute in Switzerland that messages could be sent via computers. When the US army became aware of the possibilities, it acted “not as inventor, but as catalyst”, he adds.
But from these clandestine roots, co-creation and co-innovation have been facilitated as the web gains an all-inclusive foothold across the globe, allowing consumers to have a greater say in the make-up of the products they wish to use.
“The rise of the self-directing consumer means that they are increasingly able to decide for themselves what they want. They are also offered the opportunity to develop products and services which perfectly match their needs,” he says. “Today’s critical consumers are less prepared to settle for mass market products…technology makes it possible to individualise propositions, and that plays to the consumer’s desire to self-direct.
“A powerful platform for value innovation is the strong need to be self-directing. Manufacturers will have to design products which are really more semi-finished product rather than end product. And consumers want to apply the finishing touches or design the products themselves.
“The future belongs to the semi-product and the manufacturers who facilitate the greatest flexibility and creativity will be the winners. This will apply to food products and utterly to services.”
STEPPING UP ENERGY AIMS
The Dutch floricultural sector intends to be independent of fossil fuels by 2020, supported by a number of national energy projects. The long-term goal is that the sector becomes a supplier of sustainable energy.
The Flower Council of Holland announced the aims at Hortifair and put them into historical context. “Between 1980 and 2003, the Dutch greenhouse cultivation sector successfully halved the energy consumption per unit by applying energy-saving technology, while at the same time achieving a rise in yield per square metre,” says a spokesperson.
In 2010, savings should have reached 65 per cent, so the industry is well on its way to its ultimate objective. Nevertheless, greenhouse cultivation still consumes 10 per cent of domestic natural gas and five per cent of national energy. The huge increase in fuel prices has hit the Dutch as hard as any nation and given a renewed impetus to the development of energy-saving initiatives. “The greenhouse sector is accepting its social responsibilities,” the spokesperson says.
A five-point programme has been created to direct change and monitor progress. It involves the exploration of solar and geothermal energy, biofuel, low energy varieties and improved use of sunlight, as well as the continued use of existing energy-saving measures, sustainable electricity and sustainable carbon dioxide. Ten per cent of the domestic electricity consumed in the Netherlands is already sourced from horticulture and cogeneration plants, which convert natural gas into heat and electricity for use by the grower or third parties. There are also plans to supply residual heat from growers to homes.
Energy-producing greenhouses are at the trial stage, with the first opened in May by grower Stef Huisman in Bergerden. Solar energy harvested using heat exchangers during periods of surplus heat will be stored underground to heat the glass during the winter. An Aalsmeer orchid grower has successfully implemented the principle and become the first greenhouse without need of a supply of gas in the Netherlands.
And since September, 400 greenhouse growers in western Netherlands have been using surplus CO2 from a Shell refinery, to reduce the need to burn natural gas. Supplying waste product to growers could save an estimated 95 million m3 of natural gas a year and reduce CO2 emissions by 170,000 tonnes a year.
“This is a case where the environment and the economy really work hand in hand,” says the spokesperson.
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