The Co-Creation Edge

Rapid changes in business along with better informed customers threaten the traditional sales and procurement process.   Thousands of sales and procurement people are threatened with extinction, yet all is not destined to be doom and gloom.  A new way of partnering between these two roles can, in fact, create significant value for both organizations.   


Sales and procurement professionals have a bright future ahead of them if they can respond to six trends that the authors have identified in the business-to-business world. Each trend offers an opportunity to develop a new skill for sales and procurement professionals and adopt a new practice.  Because these practices are not yet widely adopted as “best practices”, the authors coin them “next practices.”  These trends include:  working together to solve complex problems; organizing problem-solving networks across company boundaries; creating processes for live cross-company engagement; facilitating data driven, cross-company interactions fed by digital platforms; providing new personal experiences for individuals and lastly (and most importantly) creating new sources of value for firms.  


If these trends are adopted by organizations, the ability to co-create means providing significant value to both the sales management team at the supplier  and the purchasing  management team at the customer. With the alternative being that these job functions will be replaced by web-based or channel-based alternatives that will do most of what they do today at a fraction of the cost. Increasingly, there is no middle ground anymore. SAMs and senior buyers will either evolve into high value-added sales and procurement professionals, or disappear. 

“By painting the landscape of the future relationship between supplier and customer, the two authors present strategic account managers and senior procurement people with a stark choice: adapt or die. This book will get you started on the journey to co-creation.” (Ron Davis, Executive Vice President - Global Customer Management, Global Corporate, Zurich Insurance)

“Co-Creating for innovation is a true differentiator for customers. The ability of procurement to solve customer challenges through a network of diverse stakeholders is the future of both strategic sourcing and strategic account management, as shown by the many examples of companies featured in this book.” (Ruben Taborda, Vice President, Enterprise Customer Group, Johnson & Johnson)

“Fantastic book. Co-creation often requires a profound transformation of a traditional company. This book will show you how a few pioneering account managers in your sales force can initiate the transformation of the entire culture of your company and make it materially more entrepreneurial and successful.” (Arne Frank, CEO, AAK)

“Strategic account managers must help their companies’ transition from the traditional sales model to a future state where they sell through insights generated through data and analytic engines. The Co-Creation Edge will show you how innovative account managers are blazing this new trail.” (Jerome Richard, Vice-President, Sales and Business Development, Schneider Electric)

“Co-Creation is an expectation of the job for strategic account managers and senior procurement people alike. Both have to reinvent themselves. The Co-Creation Edge will guide them through the journey.” (Cindy Reiss-Clark, Sr. Vice President of Global Sales and KAM, Lonza Pharma Biotech Division)

“Commercial insurers, like many other industries, have to learn to co-create not only with their customers, but also with their distributors, intermediaries, and trading partners. Gouillart and Quancard provide the best framework I have seen on how to build those customer ecosystems and provide an engagement model to encourage co-creation and better utilization of shared data.” (Peter Linn, CEO North America, AXA MATRIX Risk Consultants)

“As the business environment is changing, strategic account management becomesa key to success. The book by Gouillart and Quancard provides a roadmap for all sales people wanting to survive and grow.” (Corrado Cesti, Head of Heavy Industry, SKF)

“In healthcare, the need to manage outcome data is transforming account management as we know it. The Co-Creation Edge will show you the process through which a few pioneers engage new communities of players, utilize novel data platforms and hence accelerate the journey towards significantly improved patient outcomes, benefiting all stakeholders involved.“ (Huw Tippett, Global Head Customer Excellence, Baxalta)

Francis Gouillart is President and Co‐Founder of the Experience Co‐Creation Partnership (ECCP), a consulting firm dedicated to the introduction of innovation in the supplier-customer relationship (“co-creation”). He works with strategic account managers and procurement managers all over the world, helping them develop relationships that escape the commodity syndrome through the use of data platforms and analytics, with a particular focus on machine-to-machine dialog and Internet of Things technologies and the development of corporate ecosystems. He is author of the seminal Harvard Business Review article entitled Spend a Day in the Life of Your Customers (with Frederick D. Sturdivant, 1994), and also co-wrote (with James Kelly) the bestselling book Transforming the Organization (McGraw Hill, 1995). With Venkat Ramaswamy, Gouillart also-co-authored the book The Power of Co-Creation (2010). Recent articles also include Community-Powered Problem Solving for Harvard Business Review (with Doug Billings, 2013) and Co-Creation in Government for the Stanford Social Innovation Review (with Tina Halley, 2015). In his spare time, he manages an angel investment fund called Co-Creation Ventures and runs a shared kitchen that houses 20 food trucks and 30 food entrepreneurs in Malden, MA. Gouillart lives in Concord, Massachusetts.

Bernard Quancard is the President and CEO of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA), a unique global community of practice solely focused on the art and science of managing customer /supplier strategic relationships. Quancard previously served as Schneider Electric’s Senior Vice President in charge of managing the group’s global strategic accounts organization, growing the organization from $180 million to $1+ billion in consolidated sales in a four-year period.  Quancard is a French native and a US citizen residing in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a degree from the University of Paris in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.