Developing what customers really need : involving customers in innovations

Involving users in new product design and development is in itself not a new phenomenon. Academic research on the subject, however, is relatively new. Since this new millennium research on user involvement in innovations has multiplied, exhibiting that firms who actively involve users in their innovation process can benefit from this initiative, even though literature also warns us for relying too much and too actively on the participation of customers in innovation. However, research is mainly descriptive and explanatory of nature, and is seldom a prescription for firm managers on what to do should they decide to involve their customers in an innovation initiative.

This paper addresses this omission in literature and tries to give some first building blocks for a protocol for firms that want to involve their customers in innovations. This protocol will be the result of the author's further research on literature, previously executed projects by the author, expert interviews and a design and development process, in continuation of this paper.