Assessment of hidden and future customer needs in Finnish business‐to‐business companies

Abstract

The development of new products should be based on the needs expected to exist even several years ahead ± at the moment of market introduction and during the whole lifecycle of the product. To develop successful new products in the toughening business environment, companies should be able to surpass customers' expectations and to assess emerging customer needs proactively. Early, thorough understanding of the customer's real needs, including the assessment of hidden and future customer needs and requirements, plays a very important role in the successful development of new products.The purpose of our paper is to study the assessment of new (hidden and future) customer needs for product development in Finnish business-to-business companies. We have carried out a survey in 93 Finnish business-to-business companies and SBUs to study their common problems in the assessment of unrecognized customer needs and potentially effective ways in clarifying new customer needs and dealing with important problems. On the basis of the results, we propose several possible ways to facilitate the assessment of unrecognized customer needs.

Culture and knowledge co‐creation in R&D collaboration between MNCs and Chinese universities

“…As previous studies concentrating on U-I knowledge interaction have not paid great attention to cross-cultural contexts, this study acts as a starting point for further studies in the field and offers a new way of looking into the dynamic and complex interplay of culture and knowledge that can be empirically examined more thoroughly in cross-cultural settings. (3) Innovation and product development should be based on the needs expected to exist even years ahead, and thorough understanding and proactive assessment of such hidden and future customer needs are particularly challenging for companies to fulfil (Kärkkäinen et al, 2001). It seems that searching for a good model or formula to predict what future customers in China may need in the long run (e.g.…”

Management and forecast of dynamic customer needs: An artificial immune and neural system approach

“…It was found in an empirical analysis that a series of managerial problems could be resulted when the assessment of future customer needs has not been given adequate attention [9]. Design specifications based on customers' future needs can reduce design iterations and reworks, as indicated by Kärkkäinen et al [5]. The selection of research and development (R&D) projects requires foresight and good grasp of the market dynamics.…”

“…Likewise in the industry, product developers generally paid little attention to identifying future customer needs [5]. Szakonyi [6] highlighted marketers' lack of analytical skills as a plausible impedance to ascertaining future needs.…”

“…The status is similar in the industry. Studies have shown that companies in general have neglected this aspect in product development [5,6]. In volatile markets, for instance the cellular phone market, it is imprudent for one to comment on the validity of customer requirement data without making any reference to the frames of time.…”

Identifying latent needs: towards a competence perspective on attractive quality creation

“…This customer knowledge is difficult to discern using standard techniques of enquiry, and several customer research methods that target latent needs have been proposed (Akao, 1990;Goffin et al, 2010;von Hippel, 1986). Nevertheless, many companies find it difficult to identify and incorporate this knowledge into their product development process (Kärkkäinen, Piippo, Puumalainen, & Tuominen, 2001).…”