Collaborative innovation customers

Products and services and customers are inextricably linked. An enterprise s value proposition is expressed in the value—the products and services—it delivers to its customers. In the New Economy, these linkages will become more formalized as organizations innovate and produce new products with their customers. Customer capital will grow when the enterprise and its customers learn from each other. Collaborative innovation will be in everyone s best interest. 

Greer, C. R. and Lei, D. (2011), "Collaborative Innovation widi Customers A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for Future Research," International Journal of Management Reviews. 

Depending on the business model(s) chosen, companies need to define their specific innovation headroom . This includes answering questions such as how important are innovations in the segment What do strategic customers need Should companies go for innovation in technology, service offerings, or in the value chain What does that imply for R D capacities and skills How can R D best collaborate with marketing and sales, (potential) customers, and external research institutes What level of external versus internal R D is required ... 

The chemical industry has a long history of product and process innovation and has provided enormous benefits to society. Since the late 19th century the industry has continually developed new products and processes, improved its functionality and cost-effectiveness, and displaced many traditional materials. Its products are now integrated into many economic sectors and it has a history of collaborating with its customers to develop innovative solutions. As a result there has been a dramatic increase in the use of chemicals and plastics, and these have provided tremendous cost savings as well as improved functionality (Sherman, Chapter 4, Section 4.6 of this volume). Safer and more efficient automobiles, and large-scale... 

Organization/leaders support and expect learning and innovation Organization/leaders value staff and empower all members to participate Organization/leaders focus on customers/patients Organization/leaders value collaboration and teamwork Organization/leaders are flexible... 

Later, more downstream processes became involved in CE, like service and disposal. The necessity to incorporate the customer early in the design process was also recognized in the approach called Open Innovation, in which consumers, customers, suppliers, and OEMs collaborate to identify potentially successfiil product ideas. In this way waste in terms of time and cost is reduced considerably by the upfront matching of insights of important stakeholders. 

Further requirements for a successful SE architecture are shown in Fig. 9.8 from an industrial study [1]. It reveals among others, that the extended enterprise as well as customers are to be taken into account and that the visualization of changes as well as using common data format are needed [71]. Thus, innovative techniques that include knowledge management can be applied to optimize the collaboration with the extended enterprise [72]. 

In Level 5, a business functional view appears and the constituents are involved in joint design and development, focused on what their collective database information shows as the trends, preferences, current popular innovations, and actual customer and consumer needs. Often the relationship leads to a truly collaborative endeavor where all constituents do what they do best and all participants bring their views of the market needs into play. The best concepts are used to create new prototypes or product offerings. Joint development of new equipment is likely to occur. Consumers are a key part of the design team and participation extends across the network. This phase of the effort could include joint investment in new capital assets. 

Products that are relatively inexpensive and do not change much exhibit stable demands. They are also known as functional products. At the other extreme are products that evolve rapidly due to new technology and/or new composition, positioned for volatile demand, and are expensive. They are known as innovative products, and companies need to be very responsive to customer needs to remain competitive in such products. As Fisher (1997) points out, the stmctuie and operations of supply chains for innovative products need to be markedly different from those of functional products in terms of inventory positioning and replenishment, capacity configuration, logistics contracts, information sharing, and collaboration. 

However, not all suppliers are equally capable in all performance dimensions. Individual suppliers must decide what capabilities they would build, given changing customers needs (discussed in Chap. 2). Examples of such capabilities would be lean-processes, collaboration, procurement, agility, information transparency, responsibilities as tier-1 supplier, and innovation. The buyer, therefore, must carefully build a portfolio of suppliers that maximizes the fit between what it needs and what the suppliers can provide. 

Revolution Fibres nanofibre acoustic products Phonix can be tailored and customized to target a range of frequency levels. Its innovative acoustic nanofibre membrane Phonix was able to achieve improved sound absorption by in combination with IQ Commercial s furniture foam. Figure 11.6a shows the sound absorption efficiency of nanofibre at high frequencies. The two companies collaborated successfully and launched the Return Focus Pod for sound absorbing office work stations for improved client privacy and efficient working desk for office users (Fig. 11.6b). 

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