VECKTA CEO and Co-Founder Gareth Evans continues this third part of our series (part one, part two) exploring the synergy between VECKTA’s values and our Marketing Lead Rob’s goal of conquering the ultra-endurance Uberman triathlon.
Empowering co-creation is VECKTA’s third of three core values: we prioritize experience, collective success and diverse contribution.
Co-creation is particularly important to VECKTA for three key reasons:
- The energy transition is a global opportunity to make a positive and sustainable impact on the way we consider and manage energy. This is not a single country, government, regulator or company effort, it has to be collaborative and communal.
- Developing and deploying complex microgrids and distributed energy systems as an integrated solution transparently, cost-efficiently, and effectively is hard for any one company. Active collaboration across the supply chain is essential to create customer-centric outcomes.
- People do not want to have products and/or processes thrust on them. We are inherently creative and want to influence our own experiences. Co-creation at VECKTA is about creating the environment whereby our team has the safety, support and empowerment to bring their best selves to design and create the best solutions as a team—no one person has all the answers. It also includes having our clients and partners contribute to our development process.
For co-creation to be successful there are several core ingredients:
- Experiences – our best experiences are often an outcome of super positive interactions with people in the right environment (physical/product). If we have the ability to influence and control our interactions and experiences we often thrive. The value of co-creation is underpinned by enabling this and thinking more about the experience and not the process.
- Boundaries – co-creation can not be a free-for-all. We need to set the right boundaries and strategic direction and then create the flexibility within the ecosystem to deliver.
- Direct interactions – a lot of what we do is complex and there is no simple or easy fix. Operating in a hierarchical, top-down approach, gatekeeping or limiting engagements and interactions results in sub-standard outcomes. We need to invite and embrace a wide range of perspectives, experiences and inputs to get the best results.
- What’s in it for me – at the end of the day we all bring our best selves when it is in our best interests—whether it be status, psychological, upskilling, money, social good. Co-creation is most successful when we self-select and align our interests with a particular opportunity. The environment needs to exist for this to be able to occur.
Ultimate co-creation is not about fixing an existing process and incrementally making it better, it is about reimagining the experience.
For Rob and Uberman, the race could not have been completed without co-creation. There was a strong strategic direction and focus in the form of the race route with critical milestones. An environment was then created within Rob’s network for individuals to self-select themselves to be part of the experience, dedicate time and effort (whether for the adventure, experience, camaraderie, charity work or other) and given the flexibility to contribute their best selves to the process as they saw fit, with a single goal of supporting Rob to finish the race.
Co-Creating Ultimate Experiences Film
The team was super diverse and had an incredible range of experiences from direct racing expertise through nutrition, medical, logistics, humor, social media, video…. the list goes on. It was the co-creation of the experience and the outcome that made it so fulfilling for everyone.
At VECKTA, we are building the market platform that empowers businesses to achieve their financial and energy goals in the form of greater sustainability, security, reliability, revenue/profits while reducing their emissions to do social good. This can not be achieved without creating the environment whereby the supply chain (consultants, engineers, equipment suppliers, constructors and capital providers) can come together in an environment that creates a positive and empowering experience.
At VECKTA we want to enable the co-creation of incredible solutions that will bring value for the life of the asset and beyond. To create this “experience” we have to embrace and live it within our team. We are continually learning—it is not a fixed process that has a playbook. But, by challenging ourselves to think and behave with co-creation as a core value, we can achieve success.
Written By Gareth Evans
