Customer involved open innovation : innovation of new products with end users and customers

Because of both technological developments on the internet and user preferences, user or customer involvement in NPD is becoming more popular and receives broad attention from both academia and businesses. One of the major advantages of involving the customer in product development is that user needs and preferences can be implemented at an early stage of NPD, therefore enhancing the chance on acceptance and adaptation of the new product in the user market. This advantage leads to firms and companies wanting to involve their customers in the innovation process at every possible moment. But then questions arise on when, in which phases, which customers to involve, and which tools to use to support the involvement. This chapter addresses these questions by providing guidelines for customer involvement in NPD.