PROSUMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN OPEN INNOVATION PROCESSES ON CROWDSOURCING PLATFORMS

Development of crowdsourcing platforms on the Internet is driven by new technology, creativity of a crowd, and the move towards open innovation processes. Crowdsourcing platforms (CPs) engage active members of the crowd as prosumers (producers, developers and actual or potential consumers) that have both the willingness, competencies and abilities in solving problems and creating innovations also new products for innovative companies. The purpose of the paper is to propose the model of open innovation process execution on CPs and present an idea of prosumer relationship management (PRM) in activities of this process. This paper determines assumptions of using open innovation processes by innovative companies on CPs on the Internet. Users of these platforms, that is: prosumers, the innovative company(-ies) looking for innovative solutions and/or the manager(s) of the platforms provide relevant services in the proposed model of execution of open innovation process activities. Prosumers with other users co-create resources and value of CPs. The paper describes the role of prosumers, services provided by them, and an idea of using PRM in open innovation process development on CPs. Services of organizing communication and collaboration with prosumers and motivating them enable CPs to manage prosumer relationships and are presented for activities of open innovation processes. Examples of using PRM are characterized on the example of existing CPs on the Internet.