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Customer involvement in product development Using Voice of the Customer for innovation and marketing
Abstract
Purpose
Being innovative and bringing new products to the market fast is important for firms to stay competitive. Customers are important for providing input to product developments in industrial markets. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of how firms use Voice of the Customer (VoC) in product development and how VoC can complement other customer involvement methods.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative case study of a global leading and innovative firm, a maker of tools for the automotive industry. The study provides detailed insight into the implementation of VoC for product development.
Findings
The process of customer involvement in product development through VoC is explored. The study shows that by using the VoC method, firms can gather knowledge for input to product development projects while developing relationships with a larger number of customers. The findings point out that VoC can be modified to focus on customer needs related to product development as well as marketing efforts requiring cross-functional collaboration. The VoC method is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods such as project involvement and pilot testing. Through VoC, firms have the chance to benchmark across industries and regions.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides insights into the VoC process of customer involvement aimed at product development. The case study provides an illustration of how an industrial firm uses VoC in product development. The paper points out the importance of managing external (customer) involvement in product development and internal (cross-functional) collaborations.
Practical implications
A set of questions that firms can ask themselves before embarking on customer involvement has been developed. The paper shows that customers can be involved at a number of points in time, have a wide range of roles and contribute different knowledge. VoC is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods.
Originality/value
The contribution of the paper consists of a case study illustrating how customer involvement in product development can be achieved through VoC. A number of customer involvement methods for product development are discussed for combining with VoC, showing how different methods are complementary in product development.
... Los clientes aportan para la innovación sus necesidades y experiencia en el uso de los productos, sus emociones y las tendencias lo que forma el input para el desarrollo de nuevos productos [10]. Los proveedores aportan con la tecnología de partes en la cual realizan sus propias innovaciones, aportan con los conocimientos en la cadena de suministros, además de patentes y licencias para el uso de conocimientos en tecnologías [11]. ...
... Considerando que los clientes aportan con conocimiento sobre sus necesidades y la experiencia sobre los productos, así como información sobre el mercado, que incrementa el conocimiento para la innovación [10]. Se presenta la siguiente hipótesis: H1 = Los clientes se relacionan con la innovación de productos y procesos en las empresas de manufactura chilenas Considerando que los proveedores aportan con tecnología en la cadena de suministros, innovación de partes y conocimientos, patentes, lo que incrementa el conocimiento para la innovación [11]. ...
... *** valor de p <0.01, ** valor de p <0.05, * valor de p <0.10 ...
... To provide some insight into these aspects, this study takes a cue from a Design for Six Sigma tool, i.e. the voice of the customer (VOC) process. The VOC process starts with talking with the target customers, in an interview or a focus group, about issues or concerns they may have with a product or service (Jach et al., 2022;Melander, 2020). These issues or concerns are then analysed to identify the customers' needs. ...
... These issues or concerns are then analysed to identify the customers' needs. When designing a product or service, the identified needs eventually become the basis of customer requirements (Jach et al., 2022;Melander, 2020). ...
Purpose
As the competition to retain current and attract new mobile payment app users intensifies, meeting users’ needs has become fundamental for mobile payment app service providers to stay competitive. This study aims to investigate the relationship between users’ needs, users’ attitude towards mobile payment apps and users’ continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.
Design/methodology/approach
Following an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, this study first conducted three focus groups in the qualitative phase to investigate issues or concerns faced by current users of mobile payment apps. The study then conducted an online questionnaire survey in the quantitative phase to collect responses from users of mobile payment apps. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse 110 valid responses.
Findings
Findings show that usefulness (modelled as a second-order reflective construct consisting of three first-order reflective constructs, i.e. ease of use, acceptability and responsiveness), traceability and security had a statistically significant relationship with attitude towards mobile payment apps (which in turn had a statistically significant relationship with continuance intention to use mobile payment apps). It was also found that attitude towards mobile payment mediated the relationships between usefulness, traceability and security; and continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.
Practical implications
The findings of this study can help mobile payment app service providers and developers design apps that offer the functions and features that their users need.
Originality/value
Although some recent studies have investigated the adoption of mobile payments in the Malaysian context, few of these studies examined current users’ continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.
... Collaboration with external partners is regarded as a critical determinant for firms' standard innovation (Belderbos et al., 2015;Jensen et al., 2007;Lundvall, 1992) and also for eco-innovation (Foray & Grübler, 1996;Hofman et al., 2020;Lee & Kim, 2011). For example, collaboration with scientific partners minimises the cost of internalising new technologies and materials (Cainelli et al., 2012;Cassiman & Veugelers, 2006;Horbach, 2016); collaboration with suppliers reduces CO 2 emission or energy waste (Dangelico, 2016;Hofman et al., 2020;Vachon, 2007); and collaboration with customers explores sustainable market demands (Cohen & Vandenbergh, 2012;Hofman et al., 2020;Melander, 2019). Each type of external partner offers access to different key resources for firms' eco-innovation; several scholars have claimed that multiple collaboration agreements with external stakeholders can generate complementary effects and increase the firms' likelihood to eco-innovate (De Marchi, 2012;Mårtensson & Westerberg, 2016;Melander, 2017). ...
... However, few studies have analysed the existence of complementary or substitutive effects between different types of external stakeholders, and those which have, show contradictory results(Hofman et al., 2020;Kobarg et al., 2020;Rauter et al., 2019;Wei et al., 2020). Some of them found suppliers and customers as complementary partners(Melander, 2019;Rauter et al., 2019) ...
In this paper, we investigate whether firms' engagements in collaboration agreements with different types of external stakeholders produce complementary effects on the likelihood of eco‐innovation. Although collaboration network and open eco‐innovation theories affirm that the combination of external partners such as scientific partners, suppliers and customers produces complementary effects on the firm's likelihood of eco‐innovation, several empirical studies found the existence of substitutive effects between them. To bridge this gap in the literature, we shape the nature of the interaction between different external partners, analysing an unbalanced panel sample of 10,918 innovative Spanish firms, covering the period 2008–2016. Consequently, we can show how firms benefit the most from collaboration with external partners. Our results show that firms that simultaneously collaborate with scientific partners, suppliers and customers generate partial complementary effects, which increase the firm's likelihood to eco‐innovate the most, and that the combination of customer‐collaboration with scientific partners, or supplier‐collaboration, produces partial substitutive effects. Taking this in account, our results also confirm that engaging with scientific partners, suppliers or customers, independent of one another, increases firms' likelihood of eco‐innovation more than noncollaboration. These results have important implications for managers, researchers and policy designers. For managers, this study provides a correct understanding of the benefits that they can expect to obtain from multi‐partner external collaboration. For researchers, it introduces the marginal analysis to estimate interaction on nonlinear models. Finally, for policy designers, it shows the need for sponsored R&D collaboration to encourage coordinated ecosystems in which sustainability goals are pursued together.
... Constantly driving innovation by producing new products is a critical success factor for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) [1] as well as large ones [2]. Businesses listen to the Voice of the Customer (VOC) to aid in the new product development/discovery process [3][4][5] as customer fulfillment is essential for the success of new products. Businesses are highly interested in identifying customer needs that are currently unmet [6] or anticipating/predicting future ones their customers may be unaware of [7]. ...
In recent years, computational approaches for extracting customer needs from user generated content have been proposed. However, there is a lack of studies that focus on extracting unmet needs for future popular products. Therefore, this study presents a supervised keyphrase classification model which predicts needs that will become popular in real products in the marketplace. To do this, we utilize Trending Customer Needs (TCN)—a monthly dataset of trending keyphrase customer needs occurring in new products during 2011-2021 across multiple categories of Consumer Packaged Goods e.g. toothpaste, eyeliner, beer, etc. We are the first study to use this specific dataset and employ it by training a time series algorithm to learn the relationship between features we generate for each candidate keyphrase on Reddit to the ones in the dataset 1-3 years in the future. We show that our approach outperforms a baseline in the literature and through Multi-Task Learning can accurately predict needs for a category it wasn’t trained on e.g. train on toothpaste, cereal, and beer products yet still predict for shampoo products. The findings from this research could provide many advantages to businesses such as gaining early access into markets.
... The tart could be eaten without any preparation or could be warmed if desired [171]. Consumed with milk and fruit, a tart would provide a convenient, nutritious, high-quality protein meal with longer lasting satiety than a high carbohydrate breakfast [172]. Formulating, manufacturing, and marketing a product require a keen understanding of the target consumer and require testing, questioning, listening, and re-testing [173]. ...
The recent millennium has witnessed a notable shift in consumer focus towards natural products for addressing lifestyle-related disorders, driven by their safety and cost-effectiveness. Nutraceuticals and functional foods play an imperative role by meeting nutritional needs and offering medicinal benefits. With increased scientific knowledge and awareness, the significance of a healthy lifestyle, including diet, in reducing disease risk is widely acknowledged, facilitating access to a diverse and safer diet for longevity. Plant-based foods rich in phytochemicals are increasingly popular and effectively utilized in disease management. Agricultural waste from plant-based foods is being recognized as a valuable source of nutraceuticals for dietary interventions. Citrus peels, known for their diverse flavonoids, are emerging as a promising health-promoting ingredient. Globally, citrus production yields approximately 15 million tons of by-products annually, highlighting the substantial potential for utilizing citrus waste in phyto-therapeutic and nutraceutical applications. Citrus peels are a rich source of flavonoids, with concentrations ranging from 2.5 to 5.5 g/100 g dry weight, depending on the citrus variety. The most abundant flavonoids in citrus peel include hesperidin and naringin, as well as essential oils rich in monoterpenes like limonene. The peel extracts exhibit high antioxidant capacity, with DPPH radical scavenging activities ranging from 70 to 90%, comparable to synthetic antioxidants like BHA and BHT. Additionally, the flavonoids present in citrus peel have been found to have antioxidant properties, which can help reduce oxidative stress by 30% and cardiovascular disease by 25%. Potent anti-inflammatory effects have also been demonstrated, reducing inflammatory markers such as IL-6 and TNF-α by up to 40% in cell culture studies. These findings highlight the potential of citrus peel as a valuable source of nutraceuticals in diet-based therapies.
... This is how marketing emerged as a discipline aimed at satisfying diverse human needs (5). However, the old marketing techniques have gradually become obsolete as people are constantly looking for changes and innovations in their environment (6). As a result, marketing has undergone an evolution in the generation of strategies, which has allowed for the modernization of products and services (7). ...
This article addresses the topic of neuromarketing applied in the context of traditional Ecuadorian gastronomy, with a specific focus on its impact on the Millennial generation. The objective of the work was to analyze the effect of neuromarketing on the preference and choice of traditional Ecuadorian foods by this generation. The research was carried out in Ecuador and included a sample of 250 consumers. The results show that neuromarketing significantly influences Millennials' decision to choose traditional Ecuadorian food. In addition, this research is relevant for marketing and gastronomy professionals as well as for those interested in delving into this exciting field of neuromarketing applied to Ecuadorian gastronomy.
... Customer involvement is important for providing information for the development of products and/or change processes in industrial markets and are practically beneficial for Company A, as we demonstrated in this paper, the process of effectively monitoring the flow of the change process includes the involvement of customers in requests for change [35]. ...
Change and innovation are increasingly exerting a significant influence on the daily activities of companies. To ensure optimal control, innovative solutions are employed that are encapsulated in the concept of change management. In the engineering change sector, the proposed approach involves developing solutions and making continuous adjustments to the manufacturing process to enhance productivity and to meet customer needs. Within the automotive industry, companies utilize innovations and process change management to continuously improve and strengthen their position in the market, such as KPI/KPRS and PCI. To achieve this, the present study gathers real digital data from the Romanian branches of two renowned automotive companies. The data regarding change requests include 215 registrations for the first company and 734 registrations for the second company. By employing complex statistical methods such as ANOVA, Student’s t-test, the Mann–Whitney test, and a regression model, the primary objective of this study is to model and to identify the best predictor of change request status. Additionally, this study aims to explore how this change process influences the economic performances of the companies and the performance indicators of change management in manufacturing processes. The findings indicate that, both in the organizations in general and within the automotive industry, when products experience high demand in the market, the number of change requests increases. This highlights the importance of internal optimization of the automation system. Moreover, the study results underscore the crucial role of an effective smart manufacturing and optimal change management system to uphold and to enhance the economic performance of automotive companies.
... Por otra parte, la elección de investigar el marketing interno y cultura de innovación radica en la relevancia que está tomando en los últimos tiempos (Melander, 2020), ya que las empresas se han visto obligadas a realizar grandes cambios internamente (Araque et al.,2017). Todo ello se da en respuesta al entorno más competitivo al que se enfrentan, y es en ese escenario donde surgen las estrategias de marketing interno; pues, al gestionar al personal correctamente, estas van a generar ventaja competitiva para la organización (Rodrigues et al., 2016). ...
The various events that have occurred in the last five years have allowed companies to undergo a transformation in order to maintain their relevance and relevance, the purpose of this research is to determine the influence of internal marketing on the culture of innovation. For the achievement of this objective, the investigation adopted a cross-sectional methodological perspective, the sample was constituted by 380 participants to whom the scale of internal marketing and innovation culture was applied. The results obtained show that development, recruitment and internal communication are predictors of innovation culture. Likewise, a moderate and statistically significant relationship is shown between the two variables. It is concluded that the predominance of internal marketing components predicts a culture of innovation in its different pillars.
... Companies are under enormous pressure to innovate and introduce new products and services, as product lifecycles shrink [34], a rather challenging process since turning customers' expectations into tangible products greatly depends on focusing on customers' input [35]. Hence, companies should strike a balance between DT and customers' needs in order to provide successful innovations that will enhance their digital maturity levels, and thus drive business performance. ...
To acquire competitive differentiation nowadays, logistics businesses must adopt novel strategies. Logistics companies have to consider whether redesigning their marketing plan based on client social media activity and website activity might increase the effectiveness of their digital marketing strategy. Insights from this study will be used to help logistics firms improve the effectiveness of their digital marketing as part of a marketing re-engineering and change management process. An innovative methodology was implemented. Collecting behavioral big data from the logistics companies' social media and websites was the first step. Next, regression and correlation analyses were conducted, together with the creation of a fuzzy cognitive map simulation in order to produce optimization scenarios. The results revealed that re-engineering marketing strategies and customer behavioral big data can successfully affect important digital marketing performance metrics. Additionally, social media big data can affect change management and re-engineering processes by reducing operational costs and investing more in social media visibility and less in social media interactivity. The following figure presents the graphical presentation of the abstract.
... However, other additional factors may affect the process (Droge, Calantone & Harmancioglu, 2008) such as Listening to the Voice of the Customer (VoC). It is a very important input to develop a product that costs so much in terms of time and money (Melander, 2020). It is noteworthy that the findings in this research do not coincide with previous research regarding the importance of marketing activities at any stage. ...
The study focuses on the relationship between the New Product Development Process activities and the success of the new products. Research on this topic is still scarce in emerging countries. From a survey of medium-sized manufacturing companies in Peru, an OLogit regression was used on 140 companies in the Lima and Callao regions. The results indicate that most companies carried out these activities, but only three out of eighteen are decisive for the success of the new product, which minimizes some that are considered key by the theory. This means that this process may not have been well structured or managed. The findings are important not only to improve the efficiency of innovation management, but also to support public policies.
... In other words, the required improvements and positive changes needed in medical care systems should be based on the new understanding of customers' requirements (C.R.s). Such understandings can only be obtained by studying the patients' perspective, mainly known as listening to the voice of customers (VOC) (Melander, 2020). Evaluating hospitals' service quality based on VOC is hugely valuable since it helps grasp what the patients undergo and what they deem unsatisfactory, providing firsthand knowledge of what should be improved (Camg€ oz-Akda g et al., 2013;Shukla et al., 2020). ...
Purpose
Meeting the patients' requirements as customers of the health care sector is crucially important as a social responsibility. According to the resource constraints, only an efficient utilisation of health services can provide that purpose. This study aims to develop a quantitative assessment framework for radiology centres as a vital section in healthcare to translate the patients' requirements into service quality specifications. This would help to achieve quality improvement by emphasising the voice of customers.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review is conducted to specify the service quality criteria and the patients' requirements related to healthcare and hospitals. Based on the experts' opinions, these criteria and requirements are later customised for the radiology centres. Moreover, the requirements are categorised into five dimensions of SERVQUAL. The interrelations between service elements are also determined through expert group consensus using Pearson correlation. Afterwards, by applying the QFD method, the relations between the requirements and criteria are explored. Additionally, a customer satisfaction survey is executed in Tehran public hospitals to prioritise these requirements and provide an importance-satisfaction analysis.
Findings
Based on the result of the case study, service elements are prioritised for improvement, and practical suggestions are provided using the Delphi technique for quality improvement. In addition, a cause-and-effect diagram is presented to highlight the improvement area and provide enhancement suggestions.
Originality/value
This study is the first empirical attempt to benefit from the VOC in evaluating and enhancing the quality of service delivered to radiology patients. In doing so, the study applies a hybrid approach of QFD and SERVQUAL as well as other tools to highlight the improvement area and provide enhancement suggestions. The findings can be readily used by the practitioners.
... From a focal firm perspective, future customers are key to understanding the user dynamics during the innovation process. Customers or users are often involved in developing new resources, for example, providing feedback during product development (Laage-Hellman et al., 2014;Melander, 2019). Suppliers, as potential producers of new resources, may also be involved as collaboration partners in the development of new products (Johnsen et al., 2022;Soosay et al., 2008). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse how start-ups with a clear sustainability focus collaborate with multiple actors at different levels to pursue business ideas and develop sustainable freight transport solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on a theoretical approach that includes three levels of analysis: the actor level (micro), business-network level (meso) and society and government level (macro). An embedded case study is used of a focal start-up aiming to innovate on networked platforms and electric and autonomous vehicles (EAVs).
Findings
Activities and resources are developed at the firm (micro), network (meso) and societal levels (macro), and all three levels need to be considered for a start-up, with a clear sustainability focus. Interaction within as well as between levels affects the innovation development, integration and implementation. The many-folded collaborations at the meso level serve as a locus for the integration of EAVs. The start-up’s networking activities with actors at meso and macro levels contribute to it gaining legitimacy in the transport system.
Originality/value
This paper focuses on the importance of collaboration in the context of developing innovative solutions for environmental sustainability and freight transport and provides a unique case of how a start-up company manages collaborations at the micro, meso and macro levels.
... Cocreation with users results in more meaningful innovation [7,8] and is an established design practice [9,10]. Studies have shown that successful new products and services involve users in various developmental phases [11,12]. There are also other design-thinking methodologies, such as agile methods, to engage customers. ...
The purpose of the paper is to introduce a new bi-directional approach to assess the gap between the customer needs and technology developers’ perception on the value propositions of innovations which includes storages. The paper used two methods; the first comprehensive sense and respond analysis investigated technology developers’ perceptions using the value propositions defined under the EU-funded H2020 RESOLVD project. The second method focused on customers and collected a survey which covered challenges, value propositions and preparedness to adopt new technology. The H2020 RESOLVD project has developed an intelligent low-voltage grid management system with storage. The results from the sense and respond analysis showed that most of the value propositions aligned with the responses from the broader survey which are needed within five years (e.g., improved power quality of grid, fault detection, reduced technical loss). However, the cybersecurity perception differed between developers and distribution system operators (DSOs). The customer survey highlighted that certain value propositions of technological solutions are needed more urgently than others, and therefore, technology developers should prioritize these in further developments. Regarding the use of flexibility to manage the LV grid, unclear regulations were expressed as a key barrier, thereby affecting business feasibility around battery storage.
... The trend of this transformation is globalisation and social change due to a new generation of consumers -The Digital Natives. Melander (2020) conducted the study at a company that develops and produces industrial products in the automotive area, to understand how the use of the customer's voice is used in product development. The study showed that the efficiency of using the customer's voice in product development depends on many variables, such as the type of approach (direct or indirect), the size of the company (for small companies the cost is high and it may be that not worth it) and the stage of development that VoC is introduced. ...
... The trend of this transformation is globalisation and social change due to a new generation of consumers -The Digital Natives. Melander (2020) conducted the study at a company that develops and produces industrial products in the automotive area, to understand how the use of the customer's voice is used in product development. The study showed that the efficiency of using the customer's voice in product development depends on many variables, such as the type of approach (direct or indirect), the size of the company (for small companies the cost is high and it may be that not worth it) and the stage of development that VoC is introduced. ...
... (Leonard- Barton & Sinha, 1993) Uključivanje potrošača u proces razvoja novog proizvoda produbljuje odnos sa datim potrošačem. Integrisanjem glasa potrošača 3 u proces razvoja proizvoda dobijaju se informacije, ali se i utiče na jačanje odnosa sa potrošačima (Melander, 2019). Preduzeće zajedničkim radom stvara vrednost za obe strane i stiče poverenje potrošača. ...
Modern companies are facing much tougher competition than before. In the past, companies were competing, mostly with other companies locally. Now companies can offer their products to customers beyond the local market. Globalization presents a huge chance for companies to grow by an increase in the market size, but as the market size grows, the same happens with the competition. If a company wants to endure, a company is under pressure to innovate, and including customers can affect new product development. The goal of this paper is to determine if including consumers in new product development can affect faster and better quality new product development processes and increase new product value for the company. This analysis should provide us with an answer to the question, should we include consumers, and if we should, when? The results of this paper could act as a guide for managers in developing new products.
... By using the VoC method, MSMEs can gather knowledge to meet customer demand in a more environmentally conscious manner. Through VoC; firms also have the chance to benchmark across different industries and regions (Melander, 2019). Virtual collaboration is also one of the strategies employing which difficulty faced by any industry can be resolved quickly. ...
Purpose
The purpose of the study is two-fold. First, to find out the different barriers that prevent the implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices in the case of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Second, quantifying the relative intensity of these barriers to understand the importance and dependence power of the observed variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary data were collected via structured questionnaires from 150 Indian MSMEs working in the automobile industry. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed. Finally, barriers are ranked using graph theory and matrix approach (GTMA), considering the inheritance and interaction among the observed variables.
Findings
There are a total of 22 barriers to “sustainable manufacturing”. EFA and CFA models confirmed four different categories of barriers. In order of importance, they are ranked as – production and operations related; organization related; collaboration related; and government rules and regulations.
Practical implications
The findings show that there are multiple barriers to sustainable manufacturing. The barriers are categorized into four major categories, and their ranking provides an opportunity for prioritization from both policy and managerial perspectives. The barriers can be overcome through both policy interventions as well as through best practice sharing, benchmarking and organizational-wide initiatives.
Originality/value
The study is among the first studies that provide valuables insights on what are the 22 different barriers to sustainable manufacturing and its relevance to the MSMEs working in the automobile industry. The study would provide further opportunities for similar studies in different sectors.
... In other words, the required improvements and positive changes needed in medical care systems should be based on the new understanding of customers' requirements (C.R.s). Such understandings can only be obtained by studying the patients' perspective, mainly known as listening to the voice of customers (VOC) (Melander, 2020). Evaluating hospitals' service quality based on VOC is hugely valuable since it helps grasp what the patients undergo and what they deem unsatisfactory, providing firsthand knowledge of what should be improved (Camg€ oz-Akda g et al., 2013;Shukla et al., 2020). ...
Background:
Carotid stenting is a potential alternative to carotid endarterectomy but whether this technique is as safe as surgery and whether the long-term protection against stroke is similar to that of surgery are unclear. We previously reported that in patients in the Endarterectomy Versus Angioplasty in Patients with Symptomatic Severe Carotid Stenosis (EVA-3S) trial, the rate of any stroke or death within 30 days after the procedure was higher with stenting than with endarterectomy. We now report the results up to 4 years.
Methods:
In this follow-up study of a multicentre, randomised, open, assessor-blinded, non-inferiority trial, we compared outcome after stenting with outcome after endarterectomy in 527 patients who had carotid stenosis of at least 60% that had recently become symptomatic. The primary endpoint of the EVA-3S trial was the rate of any periprocedural stroke or death (ie, within 30 days after the procedure). The prespecified main secondary endpoint was a composite of any periprocedural stroke or death and any non-procedural ipsilateral stroke during up to 4 years of follow-up. Other trial outcomes were any stroke or periprocedural death, any stroke or death, and the above endpoints restricted to disabling or fatal strokes. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00190398.
Findings:
262 patients were randomly assigned to endarterectomy and 265 to stenting. The cumulative probability of periprocedural stroke or death and non-procedural ipsilateral stroke after 4 years of follow-up was higher with stenting than with endarterectomy (11.1%vs 6.2%, hazard ratio [HR] 1.97, 95% CI 1.06-3.67; p=0.03). The HR for periprocedural disabling stroke or death and non-procedural fatal or disabling ipsilateral stroke was 2.00 (0.75-5.33; p=0.17). A hazard function analysis showed the 4-year differences in the cumulative probabilities of outcomes between stenting and endarterectomy were largely accounted for by the higher periprocedural (within 30 days of the procedure) risk of stenting compared with endarterectomy. After the periprocedural period, the risk of ipsilateral stroke was low and similar in both treatment groups. For any stroke or periprocedural death, the HR was 1.77 (1.03-3.02; p=0.04). For any stroke or death, the HR was 1.39 (0.96-2.00; p=0.08).
Interpretation:
The results of this study suggest that carotid stenting is as effective as carotid endarterectomy for middle-term prevention of ipsilateral stroke, but the safety of carotid stenting needs to be improved before it can be used as an alternative to carotid endarterectomy in patients with symptomatic carotid stenosis.
Modern business involves running operations in line with contemporary changes and adapting accordingly. This study emphasised the importance of customer perspectives and needs, focusing on growth and sustainability amid competition. This article examined the role and impact of two key factors in business modernisation: entrepreneurship and market research. The research aimed to enhance understanding of modern business, the factors contributing to its evolution, and the significance of management and market research in benefiting companies. The application and importance of these two concepts in business promotion were explored. A survey was conducted both online and manually through Google Forms, employing a quantitative methodology. Data were collected from various demographic groups within the Kurdistan Region, covering different administrative positions and age groups ranging from under 25 to over 45. A total of 155 valid responses were obtained through simple random sampling. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and examined through correlation and regression models. The findings indicated that both entrepreneurship and market research to be positively impact business. This suggested that Kurdish people recognise these two concepts as essential to business success. The research contributed novel insights in terms of topic focus and concept organisation, distinguishing it from previous studies and incorporating up-to-date information. Comparative analysis based on regional or economic indicators can provide a deeper understanding of how cultural and economic factors influence regional development and economic conditions
Salah satu metoda dalam menilai suatu perusahaan untuk mendapatkan kategori execellent adalah kriteria Malcolm Baldrige. Kriteria Malcolm Baldrige yang dikeluarkan tahun 2024, khusunya pada item Customer Engagement tidak memasukan Voice of Customer sebagai sesuatu hal yang dinilai. Pada sisi lain dalam pengembangan produk, sebagai inovasi perusahaan, maka Voice of Customer sangat diperlukan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji hubungan antara Voice of Customer (VoC) dengan inovasi perusahaan, mengingat kriteria Malcolm Baldrige terbaru tahun 2024 pada aspek Customer Engagement tidak lagi memasukkan VoC sebagai elemen penilaian eksplisit. Metode penelitian dilakukan dengan pendekatan kuatitatif dengan menyebar kuisioner kepada masyarakat luas. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa terdapat hubungan yang kuat antara Voice of Customer dengan inovasi perusahaan dengan signifikan. Kesimpulannya, VoC memiliki peran penting dalam mendorong inovasi perusahaan dengan memberikan informasi yang relevan dan terarah untuk meningkatkan kualitas produk serta memperkuat daya saing perusahaan di pasar. Implikasi dari penelitian ini adalah perlunya perusahaan untuk terus mengintegrasikan masukan pelanggan, baik melalui interaksi langsung maupun media sosial, sebagai langkah strategis dalam menciptakan inovasi yang berkelanjutan. Namun, perbedaan pandangan dalam kriteria Malcolm Baldrige terkait pentingnya VoC menunjukkan perlunya penelitian lebih lanjut untuk memahami dinamika peran VoC dalam konteks penilaian kinerja perusahaan secara holistic.
Value is crucial to lean product development (LPD) and set‐based design (SBD). Nevertheless, the literature needs to present more research on value definition and deployment to support exploring the design space. This scenario hinders the operationalization of lean initiatives in product development. This paper proposes a value deployment (VD) method for SBD, applying quality function deployment (QFD) matrices. We undertook a research action on the design of a TRL‐6 magnetic air conditioner. As a result, we aligned teams and development efforts toward value, building clarity and cohesion about the contribution of subsystems to product performance. Furthermore, VD enabled the integration of manufacturing in decision‐making. Our work paves the way for SBD in terms of practical relevance for industrial and systems engineering, assisting managers in adopting LPD and aligning integrated product teams toward value.
Observing customers is one of the methods to uncover their needs. By closely observing how customers use products, we can indirectly experience their interactions and gain a deep understanding of their feelings and preferences. Through this process, companies can design new products that have the potential to succeed on the market. However, traditional methods of customer observation are time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this study, we propose a method that leverages the analysis of online customer reviews as a substitute for direct customer observations. By correlating a customer journey map (CJM) with online reviews, this research establishes a verb-centric analysis that produces a CJM based on online review data. Various text analysis techniques were utilized in this process. When applying online retail site review data, our method of customer observation required one week. This proved to be more efficient in comparison with traditional customer observation methods, which typically need at least one month to complete. Additionally, we observed that the customer behavior-based VOC (voice of customer) identified during the CJM mapping process offers broad insights that are distinct from traditional product feature-centric review analyses. This behavior VOC can be effectively utilized for product improvement, new product development, and product marketing. To verify the usefulness of the behavior VOC, we asked product development experts to evaluate the quantitative analysis results of the same reviews. The experts evaluated the CJM as useful for product conceptualization and selecting technology priorities.
This chapter examines the pivotal role of internal marketing (IM) in fostering marketing innovation within organizations. The chapter identifies challenges faced in IM implementation, including employee reluctance to change, communication gaps, resource limitations, and cultural barriers within organizations. Best practices to mitigate these challenges are then discussed, in the form of facilitators that can support and enable IM implementation. Examples include effective leadership, active staff engagement, proficient communication, training and development, collaborative efforts, and appropriate resource allocation. A practical framework is provided, addressing the main challenges that can occur when implementing IM initiatives, and tending approaches to mitigate the issues. The link with innovation is constantly presented throughout the chapter, which contributes to the IM literature by offering a nuanced understanding of its challenges and best practices, emphasizing IM's role in promoting a culture of innovation and improved organizational performance.
Purpose
This study aims to use the voice of the customer (VoC) strategy to collect user-generated content (UGC) compare customer expectations with reality, make the necessary improvements for the business and create personalized strategies for each customer to maximize revenue, focus on hospitality industry in Vietnam market.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposes a synthesis of techniques for a deep understanding of the VoC based on online reviews in the hospitality industry. First, 409,054 comments were collected from websites in the hospitality sector. Second, the data will be organized, stored, cleaned, analyzed and evaluated. Next, research using business intelligence (BI) solutions integrating three models, including net promoter score (NPS), graph model and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), based on natural language processing (NLP) technique, experiment on Vietnamese and English data to explore the multidimensional voice of customer’s row. Finally, a dashboard system will be implemented to visualize analysis results and recommendations on marketing strategies to improve product and service quality.
Findings
Experimental results allow analysts and managers to “listen to the customer’s voice” accurately and effectively, identify relationships between entities, topics of discussion in favor of positive and negative trends.
Originality/value
The novelty in this study is the integration of three models, including NPS, graph model and LDA. These models are combined based on the BI solution and NLP technique. The study also conducted experiments on both Vietnamese and English languages, which ensures more effective practical application.
This chapter presents the review of literature based on which research gaps were identified and further research undertaken to fill those gaps. The literature review helped to conceptualise the previous research studies into a framework that provides overall visualisation of the research as disseminated in the book.
Purpose
The market's intense competition, the unpredictability of customer demands and technological advancements are compelling organizations to adopt new approaches, such as agile new product development (ANPD), which enables the introduction of new products to the market in a short span. The existing ANPD literature review articles are lacking in portraying recent developments, potential fields of adoption and the significance of ANPD in organizational development. The primary goal of this article is to investigate emerging aspects, current trends and conduct a meta-analysis using a systematic review of 177 ANPD articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1998 and 2020.
Design/methodology/approach
The articles were categorized based on their year of publication, publishers, journals, authors, countries, universities, most cited articles, etc. The authors attempted to identify top journals, authors, most cited articles, enablers, barriers, performance metrics, etc. in the ANPD domain through the presented study.
Findings
The major themes of research articles, gaps and future trends are identified to assist academicians and ANPD practitioners. This study will benefit ANPD professionals by providing them with information on available literature and current ANPD trends.
Originality/value
Through meta-analysis, this study is one of the unique attempt to categorize ANPD articles to identify research gaps and highlight future research trends. A distinguishing feature of the presented study is the identification of active journals, publishers and authors, as well as enablers, barriers and performance metrics.
We investigated the mediating role of virtual community identification on the relationship between online incentives and customer voice. We surveyed 369 customers from Apple (n = 198) and Huawei (n = 171) virtual communities. Structural equation modelling results showed that reward incentives (material, social, activity) were associated with higher virtual community identification. Virtual community identification was associated with customer promotive voice, and fully mediated the relationship between the online incentives and customer voice. This study enriched the related researches on brand community voice behaviour and provided practical enlightenment for the strategic methods of brand community construction.
While prior researches were examined new product development process in general and in developed countries, this study aims to propose some solutions for improving this process time through developing a dynamic model and factors affecting each stage of this process in knowledge-based companies in a developing country. Therefore, a system dynamic model has been built by employing the combination of DEMATEL and dynamic approach to simulate the effect of various factors on the time of the new product development process. After simulating the model, the best scenario across the various scenarios for improving the new product development process time was improving productivity. Based on the preferred scenario, some solutions are provided. By implementing the model and the method used in this research, managers could examine their company’s new product development process time and identify those areas that require improvement to increase their speed of new product development process time.
Benchmarking is recognized as an essential instrument for continuous quality enhancement. Many industries must get best practice, whether from competitors or similar industries to get best analyze of success factor and failures. This paper aims to explore benchmarking in various industries around the world to find the gaps between each industry and what makes the focus of benchmarking implementation from each country are different. In this paper, the author has reviewed 60 articles distributed from
2015 to 2020 in a variety of journal research and journal review. Systematic literature reviews are the approaches
used in this study since a precise, consistent, and clear methodology, with a variety of steps, guarantees sufficient
rigor and clarity in the literature review process. Authors have a review in multi-perspective to help researcher, academicss and practitioners more deeply understand and take a closer look at the growth, development, and
applicability of this technique. In this paper shown if each industry has different purpose and kind of benefit of
benchmarking implementation. Authors have classification the various paper-based on goals and scope of achievement from benchmarking applicable. In addition, this paper also
needs to find a better solution from each gap of benchmarking in the pandemic situation with industry 4.0
approach.
The study’s purpose is to examine the relationships between customer-to-employee interaction (CEI), customer involvement (CI), optimal distinctiveness (OD), functional quality (FQ) and customer engagement behaviour (CEB) in the Vietnamese hotel industry. The research was conducted a quantitative survey, which targeted hotel customers and had managed yield 389 valid responses. The research applied structural equation modelling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) to justify the validity of the model following Smart PLS-3. The findings of the study have shown that CEI, CI, and OD significantly impact FQ. CEI, CI, and OD also significantly impact CEB through FQ. Finally, FQ significantly impacts on CEB. This study acknowledges the value of customers, which affirms the regional need for skilled employee to achieve hotel goal. These research findings strongly argued for more engagement programs in the departments, since the persistent lack of the appropriate skills mix poses challenges and has serious implication for hotel managers.
Purpose
Many changes that call for concerted social action were observed in society and business performance during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The impact of digitization and customer participation was evident in providing medical guidelines, updates on government initiatives, education or the supply of essential services during lockdown in many countries. However, there were aberrations. The purpose of this study is to explore some consumers and firms' being better equipped for service co-creation than others, specifically during a pandemic; the different degrees of service co-creation and the possible outcomes of customer participation in the service context.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative study with 35 in-depth interviews of supply- and demand-side actors, with coding and analysis of interview transcripts was conducted.
Findings
The authors identify two levels of service co-creation: (1) service co-development and (2) service co-evaluation that are affected by customer capabilities and firm/institutional barriers. The outcome of service co-creation lies in the social, economic and experiential values thus created. A pandemic strengthens the effect of antecedents (customer capabilities and firm capabilities) on the co-creation process.
Practical implications
Managers can refer to the findings to manage customer engagements and co-creations effectively, especially during a pandemic.
Originality/value
The impact of the pandemic on the service co-creation process in an emerging market, and the antecedents (firm- and customer-side) and consequences (mutual value outcomes) of service co-creation and actor participation are explored.
Innovation management and associated modeling have garnered significant research interest in recent decades. The considerable interest in the topic resulted in the development of several innovation models for private and public sector organizations. A comprehensive literature review conducted by the authors of this paper on various innovation management models in the private and public sectors revealed that the majority of models share common stages. The authors presented the results of this study at a relevant international conference in 2018 that is published by IEEE and indexed by Scopus. However, it was seen that when modeling for the public sector, sufficient focus has not been placed on commercialization and practical utilization. The objective of the present study is, therefore, to develop an innovation model that allows public organizations to maximize commercialization and practical utilization. In this regard, interviews with innovation experts from different federal government entities in multiple emirates within the United Arab Emirates were conducted in order to understand the current situation for the innovation management process in the UAE government. The data from interviews were collected, conceptualized, and organized for ease of management using a Thematic Analysis approach (Braun and Clarke in Qual Res Sport Exerc Health 11(4):589–597, 2019). The outputs were analyzed to identify common themes in the results. Based on the results of the literature review, its comparative and content analysis and the results from the interviews an innovation model for public organizations is developed. The proposed model, focuses on three main areas: the type of innovation model, the stages in the entire process, and the tools associated with each stage. The proposed model is useful in that it addresses the critical aspect of commercialization and operational sustainability of the ideas, which was absent in the majority of existing models. The proposed model could help government entities identify, generate and conceptualize ideas for improvements, thereby exploiting new services that are more effective and efficient.
OVERVIEW:
Now that most companies have implemented a systematic new product process to drive projects from idea to launch, the best-practice companies are improving their processes to make them both faster and more effective. With breakthrough ideas and home-run projects in short supply, some companies are adding a Discovery stage to the front end of the process in order to generate better ideas. Activities in this new stage include: building in an idea capture and handling system; doing voice of customer research work, including “camping out” with customers and working with innovative users; generating scenarios; and holding major revenue-generating events. Best-practice companies are also harnessing fundamental research more effectively by implementing a novel stage-gate approach.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of supply chain integration (SCI) in terms of
supplier integration, customer integration, and internal integration on knowledge management (KM) and
technical innovation (TI). The study also investigates the effect of KM on TI. Furthermore, the mediating
effect of KM on the relationship between SCI and TI is investigated.
Design/methodology/approach – Study model and hypotheses were developed based on literature review.
The study is based on survey data collected from 217 Jordanian manufacturing companies in electrical,
electronics, machinery, and mechanical appliances industries. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory
factor analysis were applied to assess construct validity. Direct and indirect effects were tested using
structural equation modeling and bootstrap re-sampling technique.
Findings – The results reveal that supplier integration and customer integration have positive effects
on KM and TI, while internal integration has not. Also, KM has a positive effect on TI. In addition,
KM mediates supplier integration-TI and customer integration-TI relationships, while does not mediate
internal integration-TI relationship.
Originality/value – Most existing studies examined the effect of KM on SCI and supply chain management.
This study argues and empirically demonstrates that SCI contributes to KM capability of manufacturing
companies. Moreover, this is one of the first studies to investigate the mediating role of KM on SCI-TI
relationship. The paper provides evidence that external integration is superior to internal integration in
enhancing KM and TI.
Keywords Technical innovation, Customer integration, Knowledge management, Supply chain integration,
Supplier integration
Paper type Research paper
Now that most companies have implemented a systematic new product process to drive projects from idea to launch, the best-practice companies are improving their processes to make them both faster and more effective. With breakthrough ideas and home-run projects in short supply, some companies are adding a Discovery stage to the front end of the process in order to generate better ideas. Activities in this new stage include: building in an idea capture and handling system; doing voice of customer research work, including "camping out" with customers and working with innovative users; generating scenarios; and holding major revenue-generating events. Best-practice companies are also harnessing fundamental research more effectively by implementing a novel stage-gate approach.
Purpose
– Most benchmarking methods are based on comparing financial and operational indicators with that of the leader in the market. Financial and operational indicators may not be sustainable in facing the speed and competitiveness of today's marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to propose a dynamic customer‐driven benchmarking approach that captures changes in customer perceptions and expectations and subsequent changes in service standards set by experienced customers as best practice.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper is based on examining the current literature on benchmarking and suggesting a new approach for benchmarking that puts the experienced customer as the standard for benchmarking. The customer‐driven benchmarking approach is one that will ensure that companies are continuously improving and advancing their values to meet the needs of the sophisticated and demanding customers.
Findings
– The use of customer‐driven benchmarking will not only provide a clear direction and methods for learning from customers by initiating value‐added services that exceed their expectation, but moreover, help to sustain a company's performance and competitiveness in the long‐term.
Originality/value
– Benchmarking performance against competitors on the basis of financial and operational indicators may not guarantee a sustainable competitive edge. This paper highlights the importance of customer‐driven benchmarking as a strategic approach for a sustainable market performance, emphasizing the standards set by “experienced customers as best practices”.
The customer or user’s role in the new product development process is limited or nonexistent in many high technology firms, despite evidence that suggests customers are frequently an excellent source for new product ideas with great market potential. This article examines the implementation of the Lead User method for gathering new product ideas from leading edge customers by an IT firm that had not previously done much customer research during their new product development efforts. This case study follows the decision-makers of the firm through the process, where the end result is the generation of a number of useful product concepts. Besides the ideas generated, management at the firm is also impressed with the way the method makes their new product development process more cross-functional and they plan to make it a part of their future new product development practices. Approximately one year later the firm is revisited to find out if the Lead User method has become a permanent part of their new product development process. The authors find, however, that the firm has abandoned research on the customer despite the fact that several of the lead-user derived product concepts had been successfully implemented. Management explanations for their return to a technology push process for developing new products include personnel turnover and lack of time. Using organizational learning theory to examine the case, the authors suggest that the nontechnology specific product concepts generated by the lead users were seen as ambiguous and hence overly simplistic and less valuable by the new product development personnel. The technical language spoken by the new product personnel also increased the inertia of old technology push development process by making it more prestigious and comfortable to plan new products with their technology suppliers. The fact that the firm was doing well throughout this process also decreased the pressure to change from their established new product development routine. The implications for these finding are that: 1) it is necessary to pressure or reward personnel in order to make permanent changes to established routines, and 2) researchers should be careful at taking managers at their word when asking them about their future intentions.
The involvement of customers in new product development is considered as a successful strategy and tactic to improve new product success. However, the customers' view of this involvement is much less frequently studied than the suppliers' side. In the present paper, the customers' perspective is taken. It is first shown that the locus of initiative for product development involvement is of relevance for identifying different types of involvement. It is then argued that the degree of involvement needs to be measured. Furthermore, since customers have different expertise, they should be chosen according to their ability to appreciate the degree of newness of the future product as well as their potential stage‐specific contributions. Furthermore, the costs involved on the customers' side will call for a reward, and these costs might be influenced by the involvement of other customers, either those who compete for the same scarce resources or those who benefit from network effects. This could lead to specific conflicts. Based on available research, this paper conceptualises these problems and makes suggestions for further research. This research might lead not only to a better understanding of customers' behaviour but also to better planning of customer involvement from the suppliers' side. In future, suppliers will better understand the problems of customer involvement from this paper.
Customer focus is a key component in a total quality management approach. This paper presents a review of seven different methods for customer involvement in product development, of which quality function deployment is one. Results from the review indicate that different methods support the involvement of customers at different phases of the design process, particularly in three phases: the specification phase, concept development and the prototyping. Moreover, different methods
support the involvement of customers in different ways. Three types of involvement are identified: design for customers, design with customers and design by customers. The overall conclusion is that there exists a potential for improvements for practitioners who would like to further customer focus in the design process.
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to create an increased understanding of new product development processes concerning customer involvement. A relationship marketing perspective has provided the theoretical basis, allowing a new perspective. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative, multiple case study, based on in-depth interviews in three small companies and three large, multinational enterprises has been carried out. Findings – The findings indicate the value of cross-functional teams and customer involvement. The use of formal methods for customer involvement, however, is found to be limited. Some creative ways of using cross-functional teams in small companies are described. Research limitations/implications – A framework for customer involvement in new product development, based on the levels of relationships, is proposed. This framework conceptualises the customer-involvement options identified in earlier research, based on the levels of relationship as defined in relationship marketing theory. Practical implications – The framework gives directions how product development in various levels of relations could be handled. The paper also gives examples of how to organise cross-functional teams. Originality/value – The framework developed in the paper is useful for the theoretical conceptualisation of the area. In addition, it provides a structured base for future studies.
This article studies the relative impact on product innovation of R&D collaborations with universities, suppliers, customers, and competitors. It argues that each type of R&D collaboration differs in terms of the breadth of new knowledge provided to the firm and in the ease of access of this new knowledge, resulting in a different impact on product innovation. As a result, it proposes that R&D collaborations with universities are likely to have the highest impact on product innovation, followed by R&D collaborations with suppliers, customers and, finally, competitors. The tests find that R&D collaborations with suppliers have the highest positive impact on product innovation, followed by collaborations with universities. Surprisingly, R&D collaborations with customers do not appear to affect product innovation, and collaborations with competitors appear to harm it. Moreover, the positive influence of R&D collaborations with universities and suppliers is sustained over the long term, but the negative influence of R&D collaborations with competitors is, fortunately, short-lived. These findings indicate that ease of knowledge access, rather than breadth of knowledge, appears to drive the success of R&D collaborations for product innovation.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss and classify the roles of customers in innovations. In literature on innovations, customers have been increasingly emphasised as a source for innovations and also in how they help develop ideas in their early phases. This paper exemplifies various customer roles in innovations through three case studies. These describe the customer as initiator, as co-producer and as inspiration for business development. Through using role theory to discuss customers in innovations, it becomes explicit how customers may play their traditional roles, add roles or transfer to new roles beyond the scope of being a customer. Furthermore, the paper shows that customer roles change during the innovation process from added or transferred towards more traditional ones.
Marketing theory and practice both recognize the increasing importance of customer collaboration for service provision and
innovation. As part of such customer collaboration, customers of electronic services coproduce knowledge in varying degrees.
An evolving phenomenon, knowledge coproduction has yet to receive much research attention; we therefore conduct a qualitative
study of the roles customers play in knowledge coproduction and their resultant influence on different innovation tasks from
a service provider view. Data from three electronic service interaction channels, involving managers, engineers, and customers;
case study findings; and an extensive literature review indicate the importance of knowledge coproduction by customers and
its ability to improve different tasks substantially during innovation activities. The results show three different roles
of customers in knowledge coproduction and explain comprehensively how each role impacts various innovation tasks.
KeywordsCustomer collaboration-Knowledge creation-Innovation
This research applies an institutional arrangement perspective to develop an end-to-end model for the interaction between
customers and upstream suppliers to develop a new product to understand how new product value is created and shared. The model
is empirically tested by collecting primary data from 188 manufacturers across different industries. The research demonstrates
that customer participation affects new product value creation by improving the effectiveness of the new product development
process by enhancing information sharing and customer–supplier coordination and by increasing the level of customer and supplier
specific investments in the product development effort. In addition, increasing the formalization of the customer participation
process enhances both customer and supplier relationship-specific investments in the new product development process. The
impact of customer participation on the customer's share of the new product value pie is more complex then is first apparent.
Based on the dependence and equity perspectives the results suggest that exchange partners' power (relative dependence) positively
influences a partner's ability to capture new product value, but this power is offset by a desire of exchange partners to
ensure the distribution of value is “fair” and reflects each party's contribution to the value creation.
This paper is motivated by a desire to clarify the definition of ‘openness’ as currently used in the literature on open innovation, and to re-conceptualize the idea for future research on the topic. We combine bibliographic analysis of all papers on the topic published in Thomson's ISI Web of Knowledge (ISI) with a systematic content analysis of the field to develop a deeper understanding of earlier work. Our review indicates two inbound processes: sourcing and acquiring, and two outbound processes, revealing and selling. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these different forms of openness. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice, charting several promising areas for future research.
The aim of the paper is to investigate in a simultaneous equation framework the role of R&D cooperation in the innovation process—in context with other factors—from two specific aspects. First, analysis focuses on the impact of R&D cooperation on firms’ innovation input and output. Second, analysis is undertaken as to how the number of cooperation partners affects the innovation behaviour of firms. Starting with the discussion of theoretically expected effects of successful R&D cooperation on the innovation activities of firms, the importance of inter-organizational arrangements in R&D is empirically investigated in respect of firms in the German manufacturing industry. The estimation results can be summarized as follows: joint R&D is used to complement internal resources in the innovation process, enhancing the innovation input and output measured by the intensity of in-house R&D or the realization of product innovations. On the input side, the intensity of in-house R&D also stimulates the probability and the number of joint R&D activities with other firms and institutions significantly.
To address the trade-off between new product innovativeness and speed to market caused by customer participation activities, the author differentiates two dimensions of customer participation—customer participation as an information resource (CPI) and customer participation as a codeveloper (CPC)—and explores the moderating effects of downstream customer network connectivity and new product development process interdependence and complexity. Matched data collected from 143 customer–component manufacturer dyads indicate that CPI has a negative influence on innovativeness when downstream customer network connectivity is high but a positive effect when it is low. In contrast, CPI has a positive effect on speed to market when downstream customer network connectivity is high and no significant effect when it is low. In addition, CPC undermines new product speed to market when process interdependence is high. In contrast, CPC can improve new product speed to market but hurt new product innovativeness when process interdependence is low. The results of this article provide specific managerial guidelines as to how to manage customer participation to improve new product innovativeness and speed to market.
This paper deals with business creation in networks by setting the focus on how technology- based start-up companies collaborate with customers in product development. The aim is to analyze the pattern of customer collaboration by using the industrial network approach as theoretical point of departure. The method consists of a process-based single case study. The focal case is Oxeon, a Swedish rapidly growing university spin-off company commercializing a new technology for making carbon fiber composites. The development of products and applications has taken place in close collaboration with their customers. The paper addresses three research issues, which are related to the timing, mutuality and organizing of the collaboration. The analysis of the Oxeon case results in identification of five crucial aspects on the management of customer collaboration: (i) the need for involving customers early, (ii) the choice of application areas, (iii) the mutual process of choosing and getting chosen as collaboration partner, (iv) the external networking role of the start-up, and (v) the internal organizing of the start-up in relation to its ambitions for external interaction with customers. The results are summarized by formulating a set of propositions that can be taken as starting point for further research.
- This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.
In this article the authors discuss an article published in a pervious issue that presented an approach to building better theory through the use of case studies. The authors suggest that the paper does not do enough to support the claim that the methods used surpass pervious methods for conducting case studies. They compare the author's approach with various case studies and discuss the limitations of the author's work. Their main concerns fall into three areas; the in-depth study of a single case, deep vs. surface description and the telling of good stories vs. the creation of good constructs. They assert that by not conducting the in-depth research applied in a traditional case study the author is depriving the research of the insight one receives from that depth of study.
Purpose
This paper aims to address the need for managerial and organizational approaches to knowledge integration with customers in collaborative product development projects. The purpose is to identify the roles of customers in terms of the customer’s knowledge contribution and timing of customer collaboration in the product development process.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a multi-case study approach, comprising four product development projects from two large international suppliers. The cases were selected following the theoretical replication logic. Data consist of interviews, workshops and secondary information. For each of the cases, a within-case analysis was performed followed by a cross-case analysis.
Findings
The study shows that the customer’s knowledge contribution is aligned with the specific requirements of each phase of the product development. Three specific customer roles are identified and connected to the customer’s knowledge contribution and the timing of customer collaboration. The technical capability of the customer and the locus of initiative of the product development project are affecting the prerequisites for knowledge integration with customers.
Research limitations/implications
The study is performed from the perspective of supplier firms. The authors have not been able to capture the perspective of the customer in detail. As it is expected that both customers and suppliers benefit from a systematic knowledge exchange, future studies could examine knowledge contributions in both directions.
Practical implications
The findings can be used to devise effective approaches for collaborative product development with customers related to the customer’s knowledge contribution and the timing of customer collaboration and provide guidance to firms seeking to benefit from knowledge residing at customers.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to focus on the integration of customers’ knowledge in product development processes. This paper contributes to the customer–supplier collaboration literature by presenting further insight into customers’ knowledge contributions, the timing of customer collaboration in product development processes and the prerequisites for knowledge integration with customers.
Purpose: In business markets, working with customers and users has become increasingly important to get knowledge about customer needs and to develop new products. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to develop a framework for analyzing customer involvement in product development in a business market context, and (2) to apply this framework to a particular company to describe and analyze how it practices customer involvement.
Virtual customer communities enable firms to establish distributed innovation models that involve varied customer roles in new product development. In this article I use a multitheoretic lens to examine the design of such virtual customer environments, focusing on four underlying theoretical themes (interaction pattern, knowledge creation, customer motivation, and virtual customer community-new product development team integration) and deriving their implications for virtual customer environment design. I offer propositions that relate specific virtual customer environment design elements to successful customer value creation, and thereby to new product development success.
To address the trade-off between new product innovativeness and speed to market caused by customer participation activities, the author differentiates two dimensions of customer participation - customer participation as an information resource (CPI) and customer participation as a codeveloper (CPC) - and explores the moderating effects of downstream customer network connectivity and new product development process interdependence and complexity. Matched data collected from 143 customer-component manufacturer dyads indicate that CPI has a negative influence on innovativeness when downstream customer network connectivity is high but a positive effect when it is low. In contrast, CPI has a positive effect on speed to market when downstream customer network connectivity is high and no significant effect when it is low. In addition, CPC undermines new product speed to market when process interdependence is high. In contrast, CPC can improve new product speed to market but hurt new product innovativeness when process interdependence is low. The results of this article provide specific managerial guidelines as to how to manage customer participation to improve new product innovativeness and speed to market.
The state-of-practice with respect to customer value assessment in business markets was studied. Familiarity with and usage of nine methods were investigated for a sample of 80 informants from the largest U.S. industrial firms and 20 informants from the largest U.S. market research firms that conduct studies in business markets. Focus group value assessments and importance ratings are the most widely-used methods, while conjoint analysis, though used less frequently, has the highest percentage of judged successful applications. Implications of the results for marketing practice are discussed and some worthwhile areas where academic research might advance the present state-of-practice are suggested.
It is often asserted that hearing the voice of the customer (VOC) can generate meaningful product and process innovation. Minimal empirical attention has, however, been devoted to evaluating this claim. The paucity of academic research exists, in part, due to the lack of an underlying conceptual foundation for the VOC concept. An opportunity thereby exists to impart theory, and evaluate whether hearing the VOC can indeed lead to favorable consequences. This research construes customer focus as a market-sensing capability which manifests itself in the key organizational processes (i.e., intelligence generation and continual performance assessment) and values (i.e., a customer orientation serves as the guiding principle) that allow the VOC to be heard throughout the organization. Those manifestations are hypothesized to impact positions (i.e., relative [task-related] performance) and outcomes (i.e., customer loyalty). The results based on data obtained from a cross-sectional survey research design fielded in a supplier-business customer context provide empirical support for the favorable consequences of being customer-focused, and support the need to consider moderating variables. This paper advances theory by (1) answering the call to examine the capabilities that underlie a customer-focused organization; (2) establishing empirical support for the (a) linkage between hearing the VOC and acting on that information, (b) elusive relationship between acting on the VOC and future buyer intentions, and (c) sources→positions→outcomes model as a path to achieving competitive advantage; (3) demonstrating that being customer-focused does not have a direct effect on customer loyalty, thereby revealing a result different than that obtained in the consumer empowerment literature; and (4) demonstrating the importance of key moderators, namely (a) that relative (operational) performance has a strong positive effect on loyalty in relationships characterized by lower switching costs, and (b) that the effect of customer focus may lessen over time, implying that core capabilities may evolve into core rigidities. Additionally, this research contributes to business practice by providing managers with an understanding of how to hear the VOC throughout the firm (i.e., how to become a customer-focused organization), and offering guidance on how to manage buyer–seller relationships.
Purpose
– The current research aims to analyze antecedents and consequences of using the information provided by customers involved in new service development (NSD). It also seeks to examine the moderating effect of technological turbulence on the antecedents and consequences of information use.
Design/methodology/approach
– Data were collected from service firms in a variety of industrial sectors. Unit of analysis was a NSD project in which current or potential customers were involved during its development process. A self-administered mail survey was used to collect the data. A total of 102 complete questionnaires were returned. The proposed model was tested using partial least squares.
Findings
– The results indicate that the instrumental use of the information collected from customers involved in NSD can lead to higher service advantage and service newness and in turn to higher market performance. Findings reveal that higher recording and reviewing of information collected from customers involved in NSD result in greater use of the information during the NSD process. An important result is that under technologically turbulent environments, recording and reviewing information from customers involved in NSD is less likely to result in a higher instrumental use of such information. Finally, the authors' results show that when technological turbulence is high the instrumental use of information from customers involved in NSD has lower value for both service advantage and service newness.
Originality/value
– Findings confirm the importance of customer involvement for NSD in a business context. Using the information from customers involved in NSD to resolve specific problems or make decisions regarding NSD projects can result in enhanced service performance. Moreover, information processing capabilities are key antecedents to instrumental information use. Finally, managers should be aware of the potential negative effect of technological turbulence.
Purpose
Customer participation has been recognised as a critical factor in successful new product development (NPD). However, there is scant empirical evidence on how customer participation affects NPD performance. This research attempts to provide a framework to interpret how inter‐organisational relationships mediate the impact of customer participation on NPD performance based on marketing, innovation management and social networks literature.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study of 179 high‐tech firms in Taiwan is analysed by structural equation modelling.
Findings
The results indicate that the impacts of customer participation as an information resource and customer participation as a co‐developer on NPD performance are mediated by inter‐organisational relationships.
Practical implications
The results offer a guideline for high‐tech firms that decide to involve customers in NPD activities. In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness, this research suggests that firms build inter‐organisational relationships with customers to foster knowledge sharing, cooperation, and problem solving. However, firms should be aware that product innovativeness may be hindered by such close collaborative relationships.
Originality/value
The research demonstrates that the contributions of customer participation may not be regarded as inevitable. The authors confirm that research for investigating the linkage between customer participation and NPD performance should consider the mediating roles of inter‐organisational relationships, which may help resolve the conflicting results obtained by researchers on the contributions of customer participation. In addition, the results show that the establishment of close customer‐supplier relationships during NPD cooperation is a key success factor for both efficiency and effectiveness, but has the opposite effect on product innovativeness.
The marketing literature typically argues that customers cannot easily be involved with, and contribute to, the creation of major innovation (MI). This article finds otherwise. The authors use an inductive process method to study how six Mis were developed for business-to-business markets by small and young technology firms. Three of the Mis were successful, and three failed. The firms with MI success are distinguished by a nonconventional new product development process that includes five iterative and overlapping activities and up to ten different customer roles. These activities and roles are captured in a multifaceted taxonomy of customer participation. The analysis also uncovers three capabilities relevant to the development of successful MI—capabilities that are effectual rather than adaptive in nature. These findings and the propositions derived from them offer a more complete understanding of customer participation, new product development across contexts, and marketing capabilities.
Voice of the customer (VOC) is a critical analysis procedure that provides precise information regarding customer input requirements for a product/service output. The ability to conduct a voice of the customer analysis, which could be gained through direct and indirect questioning, will enable engineers and other decision makers to successfully understand customer needs, wants, perceptions, and preferences. The information obtained from the customers is then translated into critical targets that will be used to ultimately satisfy the customer requirements. During this research project, different forms of customer input, including qualitative and quantitative data, were transformed to a common data format to develop a correlation between design input requirements and product/service outputs. We have developed a new method for measuring customer satisfaction ratio (CSR) by considering the following: mining both textual and quantitative data, multiple design parameters, mapping output on a scale of 0–1, and a decision template for means of measure. Previous measures of CSR fail to incorporate the cost implication of fixing customer complaints/issues; however, we include this important and unique measure in our research. The implication of this research will reduce Things Gone Wrong (TGW’s) and engineering development time and will achieve improvements in JD Power ratings, quality perception, marketing tools, and customer satisfaction.
Research in new product development (NPD) has identified customer involvement as an important means to accelerate product development, to reduce development costs, and to enhance new product value. This is grounded in the wealth of customers' knowledge due to their product and market experiences. Therefore, customer involvement may provide access to innovative product ideas, new technologies, market information, and development capabilities that the manufacturer lacks in‐house. Whilst much has been written about the potential benefits of partnering with customers, only few researchers have attempted to document empirically the factors that foster customer involvement in NPD. This study examines the influence of relationship management tasks on customer involvement in NPD using data from more than 233 supplier‐customer relationships. Our findings suggest that five relationship management tasks have a strong impact on customer involvement in NPD. Relationship sponsoring, technological consulting, information brokering, representing interests, and coordinating cooperative activities are crucial for integrating customers into NPD processes. Mutual trust and mutual commitment as well as mutual adaptations by the partner firms are further important factors for customer involvement in NPD. Based on these findings, this study discusses several theoretical and managerial implications.
This paper provides a comprehensive and critical review and synthesis of the current state of empirical research into supplier involvement in new product development (NPD). The paper begins by defining supplier involvement in NPD and evaluating the rationale for supplier involvement in NPD. This suggests that early and extensive supplier involvement in NPD projects has the potential to improve NPD effectiveness and efficiency, however, existing research remains fragmented and empirical findings to date show conflicting results. The paper takes stock of the research on supplier involvement in NPD, tracing the origins of the literature to the late 1980s, and evaluating the development of the field up to the present day. From this broad base of empirical research the analysis identifies a set of factors affecting the success of supplier involvement projects. The paper concludes with a discussion of two emerging themes: (1) supplier relationship development and adaptation; (2) supply network involvement in product innovation.
Meeting customers' needs and requirements is of ultimate importance in quality management. The quality function deployment technique is widely used to translate customers' voices into design requirements. To retain competitive advantage, companies should also adopt a more proactive approach by listening to the voice of the customer in the future. It is not easy, however, to interpret future customer voices, as they may be ambiguous and changing. Fuzzy theory can be used to quantify the vague linguistic data gathered from preliminary surveys or discussions with customers. This article proposes an approach that listens to future customer voices through the use of fuzzy theory and fuzzy trend analysis. Fuzzy theory quantifies the vague linguistic data gathered. Through the use of fuzzy trend analysis, the transformed data can be incorporated into the calculation of the final importance values. An example is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.
Purpose
– This study surveys a broad spectrum of new product development (NPD) projects from the biochemistry industry in the USA, Canada, Germany, the UK, and Belgium with the purpose of exploring the role of the organizational activity factors in the NPD success.
Design/methodology/approach
– Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, the authors present a set of hypotheses concerning the relationship between the people resources, development resources, testing resources, and launch resources committed to NPD projects and their financial success. In addition, the effect of the firm's international market involvement on the NPD project success is considered. In this study, testing of the hypothesized relationship is accomplished through linear probability model, binary probit model, and binary logit model.
Findings
– Empirical results generally support the predictions from the theory. Specifically, the findings of this study show that: the involvement of a strong champion, use of a multi‐disciplinary team, and focus of a dedicated team are key factors for NPD project success among the people resources; the detailed market research has a significant impact on the project success in the development phase of the NPD process; the allocation of resources to the testing of the product with the final customer, market testing, and production start‐up positively influences the NPD project success; advertising quality plays a key role in the NPD project success during its launch; and the NPD project success is positively associated with the degree of a firm's diversification into international markets.
Originality/value
– This study provides several guidelines for product managers seeking to launch new products. It offers critical insights into the identification of firm resources that influence the NPD project success. This study also has important implications for firms that consider diversifying or have already diversified into international markets. Understanding the role of market diversification in the NPD project success advances the ability of managers to direct their efforts in international market involvement.
IN BRIEF
A recent survey of buyers in the personal products industry focused on their level of satisfaction with distribution service. Further research examined the role of voice of the customer, i.e., input provided by the buyers, in the buyer‐seller relationship. It was hypothesized that listening to the voice of the customer would be related to greater customer satisfaction. Information provided by customers should offer sellers guidance for improving their overall service. Only limited support was found. However, the use of personal meetings with customers was found to impact customer satisfaction to a greater extent than the use of formal feedback mechanisms (surveys or telephone calls). Based upon this survey, it appears as though firms are not fully exploiting the potential to be gained from listening to customers.
Customer involvement has been recognized as an important factor for successful service development. Despite its acknowledged importance, a review of the literature suggests that there is little empirical evidence about the effectiveness and outcomes of interacting with customers while developing new services. Similarly, the extant literature shows mixed views about the effect of technological uncertainty on customer involvement and the effectiveness of customer involvement at different stages of the new service development process. Against this backdrop, the present study has three objectives: (1) to investigate the effects of customer involvement on operational dimensions (i.e., innovation speed and technical quality) and market dimensions (i.e., competitive superiority and sales performance) of new service performance; (2) to examine the effect of technological novelty and technological turbulence on customer involvement; and (3) to explore the moderating effect of the stage of the development process on the relationships among technological novelty, technological turbulence and customer involvement, and customer involvement and new service performance. A total of 807 firms with 75 or more employees in a varied set of industries were selected from the Dun & Bradstreet's 2004 listing of Spanish service firms. A questionnaire was mailed to the person in charge of new service development at each company. A total of 102 complete questionnaires were returned. Findings reveal that whereas customer involvement has a positive direct effect on technical quality and innovation speed, it has an indirect effect on competitive superiority and sales performance through both technical quality and innovation speed. The study also finds a positive effect of technological novelty as well as technological turbulence on customer involvement. Contrary to expectations, the study does not find any moderating effects of the stage of the development process. This study has several theoretical and managerial implications. In terms of theoretical implications, the study supports the role of technological uncertainty (novelty and turbulence) as an antecedent to customer involvement. It also provides empirical evidence of the impact of customer involvement on operational and market dimensions of new service performance. In terms of managerial implications, the study offers critical insights on how customer involvement in new service development translates into improved new service performance. Furthermore, it reveals that the importance of customer involvement in technologically uncertain contexts and its impact on new service performance are independent of the stage of the development process, suggesting that managers should involve customers throughout the entire development process.
The relationship and network literature has primarily focused on particular partner types, for example, buyer–supplier relationships or competitor interaction. This article explores the nature and relative importance of different types of interfirm relationships for new product development (NPD) success. The underlying premise of the study is that not only the type of interfirm relationships but also the combination of relationships are important for NPD performance. The interaction with a specific type of partner is expected to influence innovative performance by means of appropriate knowledge transfer. Varying needs for external knowledge, and thus types of relationships, are observed depending on the particular stages in the NPD process, the character of the knowledge base of the firm, and the industrial conditions. The absorption of external knowledge is discussed using the degree of redundancy in knowledge, which is defined as the degree of overlap in the knowledge base of the sender and the recipient of knowledge. Hence, the degree of redundancy has direct implications for the ease and, hence, use of knowledge shared with an external partner. The article is based on data from the Know for Innovation survey on innovative activities among European firms, which was carried out in 2000 in seven European countries covering five industries. The article explores the extent of use of external relationships in collaborative product development and finds that customers are involved more frequently in joint development efforts. Second, the industry association of the most important relationship is studied, and the results show that firms tend to partner with firms from their own industry. The danger in this approach is that firms from their own industry tend to contribute similar knowledge, which ultimately may endanger the creation of new knowledge and therefore more radical product developments. The analyses combine the finding that relationships with customers are used most frequently at both early and late stages of the product development process, with a second and more contradictory finding that at the same time customer relationships have a negative impact on innovative success. Moreover, the combination of customers, with both universities and competitors, has a significant negative effect on innovative performance. The potential causes of this apparent paradox can be narrowed down to two: (1) the average customer may be unable to articulate needs for advanced technology-based products; and (2) the average customer may be unable to conceptualize ideas beyond the realm of his or her own experience. Based on this evidence the article cautions product development managers to think explicitly about what certain customers can contribute with and, more importantly, to match this contribution directly with their own sense of what direction product development should go in the future. Finally, the role of complementary as well as supplementary knowledge is investigated for innovative success finding that sharing of supplementary knowledge with external partners in NPD leads to a positive effect on innovative performance. The article is concluded by a discussion of the implication of this finding for building knowledge within the firm and for selecting external partners for NPD.
While the beneficial impacts of supplier and customer integration are generally acknowledged, very few empirical research studies have examined how an organization can achieve better product performance through product innovation enhanced by such integration. This paper thus examines the impact of key supplier and customer integration processes (i.e., information sharing and product codevelopment with supplier and customer, respectively) on product innovation as well as their impact on product performance. It contributes to existing literature by asking how such integration activities affect product innovation and performance in both direct and indirect ways. After surveying 251 manufacturers in Hong Kong, this study tested the relationships among information sharing, product codevelopment, product innovativeness, and performance with three control variables (i.e., company size, type of industry, and market certainty). Structural equation modeling with correlation and t-tests was used to test the hypothesized research model. The findings indicate a direct, positive relationship between supplier and customer integration and product performance. In particular, this study verifies that sharing information with suppliers and product codevelopment with customers directly improves product performance. In addition, this study empirically examines the indirect effects of supplier and customer integration processes on product performance, mediated by innovation. This has seldom been attempted in previous research. The empirical findings show that product codevelopment with suppliers improves performance, mediated by innovation. However, the sampled firms cannot improve their product innovation by sharing information with their current customers and suppliers as well as codeveloping new products with the customers. If the adoption of supplier and customer integration is not cost free, the findings of this study may suggest firms work on particular supplier and customer integration processes (i.e., product codevelopment with suppliers) to improve their product innovation. The study also suggests that companies codevelop new products only with new customers and lead users instead of current ones for product innovation. For managers, this study has demonstrated that both information sharing and product codevelopment affect performance directly and indirectly. Managers should put more emphasis on these key processes, especially when linked with product innovation. Managers should consider involving their suppliers and customers in the early stages of design. Information sharing with suppliers is also important in product development. As suggested by this study, extensive effort on supplier and customer integration should be made to directly augment current product performance and product innovation at the same time.
Customer involvement has been recognized as a key factor for successful service development. One important aspect affecting the outcome of new service development (NSD) projects in whose development customers are involved is the choice of the appropriate participating customer. This study examines the effect of two customer’s characteristics (relational closeness and lead-userness) on four indicators of new service performance. The paper uses data from 102 NSD projects. Covariance-based path analysis is used to test the model. Results reveal that involving close customers in the NSD process has a positive direct effect on service advantage and speed to market and a positive indirect effect on market performance. The involvement of lead users, on the other hand, has a positive effect on service newness and service advantage, and a negative effect on market performance. Findings from this study suggest that firms need to make conscious choices about the types of customers to involve in service innovation as different types of customers affect new service performance differently.
In the literature on innovation, interorganizational collaboration has been advanced as beneficial for the innovative performance of firms. At the same time, large-scale empirical evidence for such a relationship is scarce. This article examines whether evidence can be found for the idea that interorganizational collaboration supports the effectiveness of innovation strategies. This article empirically addresses this research question by analyzing data on Belgian manufacturing firms (n=221) collected in the Community Innovation Survey, a biannual survey organized by Eurostat and the European Commission aimed at obtaining insights into the innovation practices and performance of companies within the various European Union (EU) member states. Tobit analyses reveal a positive relationship between interorganizational collaboration and innovative performance. At the same time, the impact on innovative performance differs depending on the nature of the partner(s) involved. These findings strongly suggest the relevance of adopting a portfolio approach to interorganizational collaboration within the context of innovation strategies.
In order to reduce the risks of failure usually associated with NPD, leading companies such as 3M, HILTI, or Johnson&Johnson are increasingly working with so-called Lead Users. Their identification and involvement is supported by the Lead User method – a multi stage approach aiming to generate innovative new product concepts and to enhance the effectiveness of cross-functional innovation teams. While the Lead User method is frequently cited in the literature, yet, there are only limited attempts to comprehensively discuss how this approach is embedded in theories and empirical findings of innovation and marketing research. Therefore the Lead User method is in the focus of the present paper, both with respect to its theoretical foundation and its implementation into the innovation management system. First, empirical research on user innovations is reviewed to clarify the theoretical foundation of the Lead User method. Second the attention is drawn to the Lead User practice by discussing the various process steps of this specific approach on the basis of two applications of the method. Based on this discussion, we outline open questions related with the practical implementation of the Lead User method in order to start an agenda for future research.
This research explores the acquisition of customer input and its importance in the development of very new products. Data were gathered on 55 product development projects from the computer telephony integration industry – a new industry experiencing rapid technological change. The data were used to test hypotheses concerning the relationships between product newness, the importance of customer input in the development process, and the use of customer intensive market research methods. We found that the importance of customer input increases with market newness of a product up to a point and then drops off for very new products, whereas the importance of customer input increases with technological newness of a product without dropping off. We also found that the importance of customer input significantly increases the use of customer intensive market research methods; whereas, neither market nor technological product newness in themselves had much direct effect on research methods.
Accurate marketing research depends on accurate user judgments regarding their needs. However, for very novel products or in product categories characterized by rapid change—such as “high technology” products—most potential users will not have the real-world experience needed to problem solve and provide accurate data to inquiring market researchers. In this paper I explore the problem and propose a solution: Marketing research analyses which focus on what I term the “lead users” of a product or process.
Lead users are users whose present strong needs will become general in a marketplace months or years in the future. Since lead users are familiar with conditions which lie in the future for most others, they can serve as a need-forecasting laboratory for marketing research. Moreover, since lead users often attempt to fill the need they experience, they can provide new product concept and design data as well.
In this paper I explore how lead users can be systematically identified, and how lead user perceptions and preferences can be incorporated into industrial and consumer marketing research analyses of emerging needs for new products, processes and services.
Despite nearly 30 years of research focused on improving new product development (NPD) processes, recent research reveals that these improvements have failed to materialize as expected. Additionally, in today's continuous-change business environment, managers are focused on reducing cycle time in nearly all operations, including NPD, in order to realize acceptable returns on investments more quickly. Thus, we must not only be better but also faster at NPD, specifically at compressing the cycle time between new product successes, i.e., accelerating success-to-success velocity and not just accelerating each NPD project. But, how can businesses both improve the probability of new product successes and also speed up the process of doing so? This paper proposes that formalizing front-end processes will certainly help. Specifically, a process is presented which draws on customer value research that ought to help clarify the traditional “fuzzy front end” of NPD processes, resulting in consistently more successful new products.