Title: Customer-oriented product development process in B2B industry

Authors: Veli-Matti Suominen; Juha Kytölä; Marja Naaranoja

Addresses: Department of Production, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland ' Wärtsilä Ship Power, Tarhaajantie 2, P.O. Box 252, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland ' Department of Production, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland

Abstract: Introducing new products into markets needs to happen ever faster in today's competitive environment. This paper studies whether the current development processes can be improved for business-to-business (B2B) companies by feeding the market needs during the whole process. Target is to get more fresh market needs as part of the product compared to a traditional approach. Earlier research and studies have shown that successful innovation requires tight integration of innovation and marketing and is widely presented for business-to-customer (B2C) markets. Although some marketing aspects for B2B have been identified, theoretical integration of those to the innovation processes has not been presented. The research presented in this paper focuses in filling this gap. The paper comprises a literature study, selection and interviews of companies, analysis of the results and formulation of a new process model. Presented model is based on a stage-gate process due to its wide usage and adaptability.

Keywords: open innovation; customer-oriented NPD; new product development; business to business; B2B; marketing; innovation; stage gate process; time to market; qualitative analysis; product introduction; concurrent marketing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2015.066075

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2015 Vol.10 No.1, pp.47 - 66

Received: 21 Sep 2013
Accepted: 29 Jan 2014
Published online: 02 Dec 2014 *

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