Responsiveness Versus Technology Convergence

lag and idiosyncratic markets in the Integration-Responsiveness Grid 

Ohmae (1985) requests a firm to become an insider in the key markets in order to understand local markets and create global products, which amalgamate market information. But to be an insider in the key market requires responsiveness. The lead market concept requires a firm to be an insider in the lead market. In the next section I will argue that the utmost amount of closeness to the lead market is achieved by doing R D in the lead market. 

If the lead market concept can be applied to a planned innovation, that is if lead markets exist in the product line, firms must be responsive to the lead market. The lead market is the reference market for the development of prototypes. I will now turn to the question of how firms can be responsive to the lead market. I will argue in this chapter that the most efficient reaction to the emergence of lead markets is 

This is an analogy of the concept that the market as a whole and no single agent embodies all the knowledge of preferences and expectations. In financial markets the price setting mechanism reveals this aggregated knowledge in prices of stock prices and option prices (Miller 1991, p. 131). 

The concept of R D in the lead market follows from the following chain of arguments. Market interaction potential is a success factor for the development and introduction of innovations.The market orientation of firms requires the proximity between R D and markets because first, information about user needs are required from the first phase of the R D process. Second, researchers and engineers often neglect marketing information and are biased by their environment, social interaction and contacts to customers and competitors. Third, proximity between R D and the reference market is important for efficient communication and interaction.The last argument was already given in section 2.5 and refers to Linder s home market thesis. 

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