TY - BOOK
T1 - Integrating Consumer Understanding into New Product Development
T2 - Practical Approach for Integrating Consumer Understanding into Technology Push-originated NPD Processes
AU - Tiilikainen, Aimo
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - In this paper, we wish to contribute to technology push
-originated NPD process development by introducing an
approach to increase consumer orientation in practice in
NPD processes. We propose a five-step approach for this
purpose. The NPD stage-specific steps in our approach are
as follows:
1. cross-functional workshops in early NPD phases to
generate end user-oriented product ideas from
technological opportunities,
2. cross-functional workshops to develop end
user-oriented product concepts from product ideas,
3. qualitative end user studies to develop more
consumer-oriented cross-functional product concepts,
4. specific phase for food products: development of the
sensory parameters of product prototypes in order to
better meet the criteria of consumers, and
5. semi-quantitative consumer studies to validate
consumers' positive buying intentions and evaluations of
the subjective quality and price perceptions of the
developed prototypes.
We made the decision to use a comparative methodology in
the quantitative consumer studies; the reference product
is from the same product category as the one in which the
prototype is intended to be launched.
Currently, new products fail more often than they succeed
on the market, especially in the case of groceries; our
reasoning is that this problem is due to the overly
limited understanding of end users in the NPD process. In
aiming to increase this orientation, one should be ready
to invest in this issue as to technology or economics and
take action to understand end users earlier in the
process, allocating a greater budget and know-how to this
effort with a view to achieving deeper understanding.
AB - In this paper, we wish to contribute to technology push
-originated NPD process development by introducing an
approach to increase consumer orientation in practice in
NPD processes. We propose a five-step approach for this
purpose. The NPD stage-specific steps in our approach are
as follows:
1. cross-functional workshops in early NPD phases to
generate end user-oriented product ideas from
technological opportunities,
2. cross-functional workshops to develop end
user-oriented product concepts from product ideas,
3. qualitative end user studies to develop more
consumer-oriented cross-functional product concepts,
4. specific phase for food products: development of the
sensory parameters of product prototypes in order to
better meet the criteria of consumers, and
5. semi-quantitative consumer studies to validate
consumers' positive buying intentions and evaluations of
the subjective quality and price perceptions of the
developed prototypes.
We made the decision to use a comparative methodology in
the quantitative consumer studies; the reference product
is from the same product category as the one in which the
prototype is intended to be launched.
Currently, new products fail more often than they succeed
on the market, especially in the case of groceries; our
reasoning is that this problem is due to the overly
limited understanding of end users in the NPD process. In
aiming to increase this orientation, one should be ready
to invest in this issue as to technology or economics and
take action to understand end users earlier in the
process, allocating a greater budget and know-how to this
effort with a view to achieving deeper understanding.
KW - NPD
KW - technology push
KW - consumer orientation
KW - end user-orientation
KW - methodology to increase consumer orientatio
KW - food products
M3 - Report
T3 - VTT Working Papers
BT - Integrating Consumer Understanding into New Product Development
PB - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
CY - Espoo
ER -