In this digital age of an interconnected world where new technologies are emerging rapidly, changing the competitive landscape organisations need to differentiate themselves in the marketplace by offering superior value proposition to their customers. Marketing is basically about satisfying human needs profitably and also creating value for the customers . Marketers need to create distinctive & unique offerings, build brands and focus on promotion activities along with a robust distribution strategy.

Nowadays IT has become a business enabler and companies who align their business goals with IT are successful in the long run. We are observing that most of the business models are evolving constantly and becoming internet enabled .In this era of an application economy , customers are well informed as they have access to all kinds of information via mobile, laptop or any other device.Due to the power of internet and social media customers today are more empowered and connected, which is shifting the balance of power. Consequently,firms must rethink how they interact with customers.

There is a paradigm shift in the stream of relationship marketing as now more customers are playing a proactive role in managing relationship with the vendors, tweaking their requirements as per the needs of the market, providing inputs for improvements etc. Value in marketing exchanges is no longer created by firms and delivered to customers. Rather, customers are becoming co-creators of value by participating directly in the marketing process. As customers contribute their expertise, time and resources in marketing exchanges, we are witnessing the emergence of collaborative marketing.

Collaborative marketing can be defined as the process of working together with customers to create value in marketing exchanges. Relationship marketing requires firms to think about maintaining relationships with the customers. In contrast, collaborative marketing requires firms to think about collaborating & working together with customers by making customers an integral part of the firm’s marketing activities. This creates a win-win situation for both the customers as well as the firms.

Many companies invite & encourage ideas, suggestions from their existing customers to come out with new products and services. This becomes extremely important for companies which wishes to pursue a blue ocean strategy in which it aims to create an uncontested market space by making the competition irrelevant.

Companies need to think about finding products for their customers instead of thinking about finding customers for their products.

Firms need to build technology platforms that allow customers to connect to their business processes. A key challenge which a few firms face is in involving customers is the reluctance of customers to contribute time and effort to the collaboration. Firms have to come out with a strategy of offering incentives or make the customers realize the mutual benefit that could be derived from their expertise.

The key is to create a compelling and unique value proposition for collaboration, so that customers and the firm are motivated to engage in joint sessions and interactions. Firms that utilize the power of collaborative marketing will be able to take their customer relationships to the next level.