Ursula Koners

Repertory Grid Technique

Psychology is a science that focuses on understanding the workings of the brain and how people think. In attempting to understand such complex processes, psychologists do not ask direct questions such as “how do you think?” However, in trying to understand their customers, many companies rely solely on direct questions posed through focus groups and surveys. The challenge in understanding customers should not be underestimated—sophisticated approaches are necessary to generate the insights to develop breakthrough product concepts. So it is not surprising that an approach developed for psychology—repertory grid technique—has important applications in market research.

Managers' perceptions of learning in new product development

Purpose – Post‐project reviews (PPRs) are widely recommended as an appropriate mechanism to stimulate project‐to‐project learning in new product development (NPD) teams. However, empirical research on their potential is limited and so this study aims to answer two questions: how do NPD professionals perceive PPRs? and is tacit knowledge created during PPRs?Design/methodology/approach – Five in‐depth case studies were conducted in German companies. The main sources of data were: company documentation; in‐depth interviews with managers; and observation of PPRs. The different data sources enabled extensive data triangulation and a high degree of reliability and validity to be achieved.Findings – The results indicate that NPD personnel perceive PPRs to be a very useful mechanism. They also show that social interactions and tacit knowledge play key roles in NPD learning.Research limitations/implications – Tacit knowledge was investigated using a proxy measure – the usage of metaphors and stories in NPD discuss...

Surveys and Interviews

Surveys are the classic tool for market research and because they are ubiquitous, every one of us has at some time been asked to answer survey questions. Writing survey questions is deceptively difficult and, consequently, many questionnaires are so badly phrased or designed that the results are of little value. Therefore, it is absolutely essential for marketers to become good at survey technique. Although customers may have difficulties in answering direct questions about their future product requirements, surveys and interviews remain at the heart of market research and they are essential complement to newer methods for identifying hidden needs.

Capturing Tacit Knowledge in New Product Development: A Study of Post-Project Reviews

Organisations need to learn from new product development projects. This paper describes a detailed study of how post-project reviews can generate and disseminate knowledge within an R&D environment. Tacit knowledge is generally acknowledged to be a challenging topic to research and so case studies were conducted using multiple sources of data. The research identifies the main factors that influence the generation of tacit knowledge at post-project reviews, such as the atmosphere and the discussion methods chosen. Although the study is exploratory, the results have implications for managers that want to positively influence the generation and dissemination of knowledge in R&D.

Ethnographic Market Research

Most marketing executives regularly visit customers and they will often observe them using products. However, casual observation and informal discussions with customers are unlikely to lead to breakthrough products. Also, such visits cannot be compared with the thoroughness of ethnographic market research, which has two main elements: systematic observation and contextual interviewing. There is nothing casual about the way ethnographers study tribal cultures and so, in this chapter, we will stress the need to plan and conduct observation in a similarly meticulous way. “Systematic observation is a research method in which events are selected, recorded, coded into meaningful events, and interpreted by non-participants.”2 This definition contains several elements that differentiate systematic observation. First, what is observed is selected, which means that the times at which we observe customers interacting with products need be chosen carefully. Second, coding implies that data are categorized in a painstaking way to reveal underlying meanings and issues. Finally, the definition’s reference to nonparticipants implies that the interpretation is made objectively.

Combining the Techniques: Designing Breakthrough Products and Services

We opened this book by commenting on the large number of new products and services that fail and we have stressed throughout that understanding customers’ hidden needs is essential to the successful development of breakthrough products. To identify hidden needs, innovative techniques for market research need to be combined with more traditional ones. Using a combination of techniques generates deeper insights and also allows the results to be triangulated (crosschecked). But recognizing hidden needs is only the first challenge; creative product and service concepts need to be developed that address the hidden needs. In this chapter we explain how to combine different market research techniques to gain deeper market insights and then we discuss how these insights can be used to design breakthrough products. The approach we will present is not theoretical; it is based on our experiences working with a number of leading organizations including Agilent Technologies and Bosch Packaging Technology in the manufacturing sector, and VirginMoney in the financial services sector.

Involving the User

Traditional market research keeps customers at arm’s length in that they are asked what type of products and services they would like but then they have no further involvement in new product development. In short interactions with market researchers, it is difficult for customers to articulate the type of features they would like, particularly if they are unaware of the technological possibilities. However, some customers do have the expertise to know what is technologically possible, and others may have already modified their existing equipment to cope with its limitations. Some consumers are interested to have their views heard by their favorite companies, and yet others are even willing to assist with product development. Involving the user is the term we shall use for a range of techniques that companies can apply to collect customers’ ideas and tap into their expertise in the development of innovative products and services.

Example: Warehouse Equipment Research

This chapter describes discovery research into the opportunities for innovative warehouse equipment. It shows how ethnographic market research can be conducted using the approach presented in Chapter 4. The discussion is based on an actual project conducted in 2007 for a major manufacturer, which for reasons of confidentiality we will refer to as WarehouseEquipCo.

Focus Groups (And Variations)

Most companies which want to listen to the voice of the customer rely either on surveys and one-to-one interviews or focus groups. The term focus groups derives from the term focused group discussion2: groups of people with sufficient know-how, or a group of current and/or potential customers engage in a relatively unstructured discussion on a selected topic related to a product or service. Members of focus groups are usually individually recruited, based either on their personal experience of the topic of interest, or simply their willingness to participate in the focus group.

Introduction to Customers’ Hidden Needs

Many new products fail. Far too many! Products fail regularly in both the manufacturing and service sectors. By failure we mean that these new products fail to excite customers and fail to reach the sales and market share goals set by the companies that develop them. Research shows that the major reason that new products and services fail is that they are too similar to existing market offerings. New products which are hard to differentiate simply do not capture the customer’s imagination. However, the lack of differentiable features is a symptom. The cause of the problem is a poor understanding of customers’ needs. Companies need to take a radically different approach if they are to be successful at identifying customers’ real needs and this book is about innovative ways to conduct market research. Specifically, it addresses how to unveil what we will term customers’ hidden needs.