Contributors: Anu Carnegie-Brown, Stephane Hue, and Ursula Steigerwald

As we gear up for ELIA Networking Days 2024, we’re excited to share a special two-part series focused on some of the event’s key discussion topics. First up, we’re diving into co-creation—a concept that could redefine how language service providers collaborate, innovate, and grow without the need for mergers or acquisitions. From working with fellow LSPs to collaborating with external industries, the possibilities of co-creation are vast and untapped. What does the future hold for such collaborations, and how can they benefit your business?

The basic idea of co-creation is that businesses include outsiders in their ideation and development process.  This idea is nothing new. In fact, many “old fashioned” research and development techniques such as focus groups, surveys, and polls are co-creation efforts in their own right. Co-creation opens your innovation process up to a wide range of viewpoints that would normally never be involved.

The term ‘co-creation’ was popularised by a Harvard Business Review article in 2000. In this article, the authors focused on the relationship between a business and its customers. And it’s true – most of the time we think of co-creation between a company and consumers. But co-creation can also involve:

1. Employees (to bring departments and silos together)
2. Prospective buyers (not just current ones)
3. Suppliers (working together to improve the chain)
4. Peers (to find solutions to shared problems)
5. Competitors (when a challenge requires a solution that benefits everyone)
6. Industry influencers (when a challenge impacts an entire industry)
7. People from entirely different fields

By definition, co-creation brings new voices and ideas into the fold. These may not be the kinds of people you’d normally work with, in fact, the best ideas may come from other industries, or from people who have no subject matter expertise at all.

If we apply the seven co-creation groups above to the language services industry, we could define the potential co-creation opportunities like this:

1. Within a Language Service Company (to bring departments and employees from the different silos together to improve processes or develop new services)
2. Between an LSC and their existing or prospective clients (to sound out the buyers’ needs and pain points e.g. on social media)
3. Between an LSC and their suppliers (working together with freelance translators to improve processes or to develop new services)
4. An LSC with another LSC who is not a competitor (to find solutions to common problems, or to develop new solutions or to sell services together (for large contracts, or to share expert employees, highly sought after talents)
5. An LSC with a language technology or IT company (to find ways to integrate AI to our solutions or to develop new solutions)
6. LSCs with other LSCs (when a challenge requires a solution that benefits everyone e.g. a new standard)
7. Language industry influencers (when a threat or opportunity impacts the entire industry)
8. An LSC with expert(s) from entirely different fields (brainstorming with people from industries who have been through a similar upheaval and transformation phase the language services industry is facing now)

At ELIA Networking Days 2024 we’ll be discussing the pros and cons for each of these co-creation opportunities. There are certainly challenges and difficulties in making the co-creation successful in each case, but as our market is changing fast, we need agile ways to acquire new strategies and competencies. If gaining them through a merger or acquisition is not an option, maybe co-creation could give us some of the same benefits.

Co-creation can be a powerful tool for driving innovation, even more so during tough times. We should reach out far and wide by collaborating with other stakeholders like universities and government bodies to pool the resources that can overcome the challenges posed by disruption and an economic downturn.
Let’s get the conversation started ahead of the ND24 roundtable discussions! What are your thoughts on co-creation? How could it grow your business or reshape our industry?

Share your insights on LinkedIn and join the discussion today! #ELIAdiscussion