Managing customer knowledge during the concept development stage of the new food product development process

New product development (NPD) is a knowledge intensive process where the generation of new ideas and concepts requires detailed knowledge of both products and customers. The high reported failure rates for innovative functional beverages suggest an inability to manage customer knowledge effectively, as well as a lack of knowledge management between functional disciplines involved in the NPD process. This research explored the concept of managing customer knowledge at the early stages of the NPD process, through the use of advanced concept optimisation methods, and applied it to the development of a range of functional beverages. A conjoint - based survey was administered to four hundred customers in Ireland. This research identified two hypothetical functional beverage concepts with high levels of customer acceptance. Managing customer knowledge during the concept development stage of the NPD process can assist firms overcome customer acceptance issues associated with innovative products. Methodologies that advance both a firm's understanding of customers' choice motives and value systems, and its knowledge management process, can increase the chances of new product success in international food and beverage markets.Knowledge Management, New Product Development, Functional Beverages, Marketing,

Designing market-oriented beta-glucan enriched functional foods through conjoint analysis: evidence of differing consumer preferences

New product development (NPD) has a significant role to play in the rapidly evolving food supply chain where firms wish to utilise innovative novel ingredients to meet consumers’ increased needs for healthier foods. It is a knowledge intensive process where the generation of new ideas and concepts requires detailed knowledge of both products and consumers. Beta-glucan, a novel soluble fibre, is of major interest to global food firms for its ability to increase the functionality of food and beverage products through increasing the soluble fibre content. The determination of intrinsic and extrinsic product attributes that maximise consumer acceptance of beta-glucan enriched products is largely dependant on a market-oriented NPD process. This study utilised a Conjoint Analysis methodology to examine the tradeoffs consumers would make during the purchasing decision process for healthy beta-glucan enriched breads. Three hundred consumers rated twenty-two hypothetical products on a nine-point Likert scale according to their willingness to purchase. This research identified key attributes which determined consumers’ preferences for these enriched products and identified four viable consumer segments. Managing customer knowledge during the early stages of the NPD process can help firms overcome customer acceptance issues associated with innovative functional ingredients and encourage firms to respond to new market opportunities along the food supply chain.Knowledge Management, Market orientation, Conjoint Analysis, Beta-glucan., Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

What Policies and Practices Can HR Utilize to Promote an Innovation Based Culture and Help Drive Business Outcomes Through It?

[Excerpt] Innovation has evolved from a mainly scientific activity of research and development to a complex system of interactions among various participants both inside and outside of a firm. In an economy where the innovation cycle is shrinking, characterized by disruptive innovations and changing customer needs, it is crucial for companies to keep up with emerging trends and stay on top of factors that enhance their capacity for innovation. Innovation should not be limited to new products, it can lead to new processes as well. An idea may not work for one department, project, or product, but may be a good solution for another. Innovative firms effectively work across organizational boundaries and connect great ideas with the right people. Despite the importance of innovation, managing and promoting it in a company is not easy, especially when the payoff is often multiple years away. Human Resources, through various policies and practices, can play a vital role in promoting an innovation based culture

Mobile Social Media as a Strategic Capability: Expanding Opportunties Social Media Has to Offer to B2B Firms

Mobile social media (MSM), an interaction, exchange of information and creation of user-generated content, mediated by mobile devices is becoming the locomotive that drives forward evolution of online world. So far, limited number of academic studies touched upon the MSM subject with all the papers being of conceptual nature. No empirical evidence is available to prove whether and how firms utilise MSM for their best advantage. This paper addresses this gap by employing the grounded theory approach (GT) to analyse interviews conducted in twenty-six B2B firms. This study found that eighteen firms use mobile technology primarily as a platform to access social media sites, understand canons of MSM consumption and utilise MSM as a strategic capability to reinforce the strategic position of a firm. Our data illustrates that the MSM strategic capability includes four main activities: (1) market sensing; (2) managing relationships; (3) branding and (4) developing content. These activities can results in the decreased research and development spendings without sacrificing innovativeness because MSM is a valuable source of information about the market and a source of ideas for new products/services. In practical terms firms can examine MSM activities and decide whether there is an opportunity to utilise MSM advantageously

An Approach to Conceptual and Embodiment Design within a New Product Development Lifecycle Framework

[EN] The design of new innovative products is the result of an accurate and precise management of knowledge sources all over its life cycle, such as technology, market, competitors and suppliers. The work contributes with a framework that shows how the knowledge sources influence in the state-of-the-art and market needs so that they become opportunities for innovating products addressing the whole product life cycle. It provides a systematic path from the early generation of ideas to the production of a new product proposal. Through a deep analysis of previous research works of new product innovation life cycle development frameworks and linking it with knowledge management, strategic planning and scorecards, we came out with a structured contribution. The result considers the concurrent activities and its relationships all the way through the product life cycle that can help in creativity and innovation, combined with a process management proposal. Managing the sources of knowledge in highly dynamic markets and technologies is one of the major difficulties involved in innovative products design and development. The emerging knowledge from external sources is confronted with organisation internal knowledge and experience in order to achieve the first product correct.This work was supported by the Spanish Government and the Universitat Jaume I of Castellon (Spain) through research [project number P11B2009-37], entitled 'Methodologies for Implementing Product lifecycle management tools for mechanical Small and Medium Enterprises'.Vila, C.; Albinana, JC. (2016). An Approach to Conceptual and Embodiment Design within a New Product Development Lifecycle Framework. International Journal of Production Research. 54(10):2856-2874. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1110632S28562874541

Stimulating innovation: managing peer interaction for idea generation on digital innovation platforms

This study investigates user behaviours in online innovation communities which are enabled by digital technologies, to obtain an understanding of the relationship between user’s social interaction and their innovation contribution. The new type of innovation communities enable firms to crowdsource ideas from their users for developing new products and improving existing ones, and to facilitate the interactions among users. From an empirical study which collects a large-scale, quantitative data set from Microsoft’s Idea platform of Business Intelligent products, this paper focuses on the amount and diversity of users’ social interaction particularly their commenting behaviours on the platform, and uses the number of posted ideas and the number of implemented ideas to capture users’ contribution to the firm’s innovation development. The findings indicate that the amount of user interaction is positively related to the number of implemented ideas, but has an inverted U-shaped relationship with idea number. Moreover, diverse user interaction encourages idea posting, but is negatively associated with the number of implemented ideas. The findings should provide managerial guidance to firms on incentivizing and managing user interaction in online communities in order to improve firms’ innovation development

Understanding and supporting large-scale requirements management

Large market-driven software companies face new challenges in requirements engineering and management that emerged due to their recent extensive growth. At the same time, the pressure generated by competitors’ and users’ expectations demands being more competitive, creative and flexible to more quickly respond to a rapidly changing market situation. In the pursuit of staying competitive in this context, new ideas on how to improve the current software engineering practice are requested to help maintaining the engineering efficiency while coping with growing size and complexity of requirements engineering processes and their products. This thesis focuses on understanding and supporting large-scale requirements management for developing software products to open markets. In particular, this thesis focuses on the following requirements management activities in the mentioned context, namely: scope management, variability management and requirements consolidation. The goals of the research effort in this thesis are to provide effective methods in supporting mentioned requirements management activities in a situation when the size of them and their complexity require large time and skills efforts. Based on empirical research, where both quantitative and qualitative approaches were utilized, this thesis reports on possible improvements for managing variability and presents visualization techniques to assist scope management for large-scale software product development contexts. Both reported ideas are empirically evaluated in case studies in a large-scale context. Additionally, the benefits of using linguistic methods for requirements consolidation are investigated in a replicated experimental study based on a relevant industry scenario

Inovation Development in Leading Croatian Enterprises: Review of the Most Important Findings

There is much talk in Croatia about the capability of Croatian companies to innovate. However, there is a lack of systematic studies on innovations development in Croatia. This paper aims to bridge that gap by reporting on a study that was performed on 100 leading Croatian companies. The paper addresses the structure of innovation in surveyed leading companies, and examines the novelty level of new products and processes. It explores whether firms of different sizes differ in their innovation output, and whether the continuity with which firms perform research activities has any impact on their innovation output. The sources of new product ideas are explored, as well as some preconditions for the new product success. As managing new product development improves the success rate, this paper examines the prevalence of such processes in companies. The impact of the new product development process on the innovation output is explored

Creating a culture for radical innovation in a small mature business

This article describes an approach in organizational development to develop an innovation culture for radical product development in a small mature engineering company. The research took place in a business based in the United Kingdom that designed and manufactured instrumentation and specialized packing machines. An initial study within the company’s new product development team identified key aspects that influenced a radical innovation culture. Nine key themes were found to be pertinent, following an iterative process with the development team. These themes were triangulated using the established Organization Culture Assessment Instrument and the Creative Climate Assessment Tool. A third assessment was developed that gauged the development team culture proximity to an ideal position. Seven interventions were developed in conjunction with the company development team, senior managers, the analysis of previous empirical case research and dialogue with UK companies that promote discontinuous innovation. The results of the interventions were evaluated 4 years after implementation. The culture was re-assessed using the same assessment tools and the changes were identified. The outcomes are described and they indicate the success of the company’s attempt to embed a sustainable radical innovation culture into the product development area