Co-creation in design: how the UK company Own Label combines openness and ownership to manage talent

Purpose – This case study of a fashion-design company aims to show how a co-creation initiative produces competitive advantage by nurturing creativity, expanding the company’s innovation capabilities and enabling it to engage with both taste-making customers and designers from anywhere in the world. Design/methodology/approach – In 2009, Fronteer Strategy, a Netherlands-based market-analysis firm published a conceptual framework for identifying specifically how a firm’s processes and initiatives employ co-creation. This case looks at how this theoretical framework compares with the actual complexities of the co-creation process developed by Own Label. Findings – Own Label’s co-creation approach is a hybrid model that utilizes more than one type of co-creation across its fashion-design process. Practical implications – What makes co-creation in design-intensive industries a disruptive approach is the democratization of the process by which design choices are made. Originality/value – Own Label is utilizing its hybrid models of co-creation in order to strategically position its self in niche markets, adapt faster to trends, as well as to be a design leader.