ESOMAR

Developing Talent Initiative

Market Research for Breakthrough Products

Development of a Theoretical Framework

Harleen Sindhu
MBA
Imperial College London
Developing Talent Initiative

•Partnership Project Between ESOMAR

& Tanaka Business School, ICL

•Promote The Value of Market & Opinion

Research

•Facilitate Effective Decision Making

•Enhance Skills, Know-how & Expertise

Of Current and Future MR Professionals

•Bridge the Gap Between Academic

Research & a Practitioner’s Real World
Experience
 Discussion Map

“Market Research for Breakthrough Products

Development of a Theoretical Framework”

Primary Research Findings

A Look At The Discussion Of Discussion Of

Philips
Academic MR Proposed
MR Model
World Approaches Model

Next Steps
 ESOMAR Project Brief
“Market Research for Breakthrough Products
Development of a Theoretical Framework”

Key Trends:

•Significant Increase in Need of Firms to Develop & Commercialise

•Emergence of Radical/Disruptive/Breakthrough Products

Key Challenges:

•How to Identify What These Products Should Be?

•What Should the MR Programme for Breakthrough Products Look Like?
 Project Objectives
• Primary Aim:
– Develop a Theoretical Market Research (MR) Framework for Radically
Innovative Products

• Secondary Objectives:
– Define Innovation
– Identify Typology of Innovation
– Understand Current Market Research Process for Innovative Products

• Current Trends
• Identification of Key Stakeholders Who Effect Adoption
• Problems Encountered (specifically for disruptive technologies)
• Identification of Key Gaps in Current Practise

– Data Analysis from Relevant Case Study : Philips Design

 From Creative Destruction to
Innovative Technology

Technological Expansion New Technology

Threat from a Through Becomes
Technical Successive Industry Standard
Innovation Outside Sub-Markets
the Industry

Characteristics: Characteristics:
•Often Pioneered by a •Follows S-Shaped Growth
New Firm •Sales of Old Product Expand for a Few Years,
•Initially Crude and Leading to Eventual Decline
Expensive
 Types of Innovation
Market User Application
Technology Technology Innovation Strategies Types
Source Focus Type
Technology Creative
Disruptive Discontinuous Push Destroying
Exogenous
Replacement
Market Pull Or
Substitution

Replacement
Market
Or
Pull
Substitute
Firm Core Continuous
Competencies Sustaining New or Major
Technology
Push Improvement

Source: Walsh and Kirchloff, 1998

 Escaping The Red Queen
“In Order to Stay in a Place (Competitive),
You Have to Run Very Hard, Whereas to
Get Anywhere You Have to Run Even
Harder”: Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carol

Businesses Cannot Survive By Just Running

Harder, They Need to Run Differently and
‘Smarter’ Than Competitors
 Three Phases of Disruption

The Disruptive Innovation

Innovation Creates a The New Market
Having Improved Greatly
New Non-Competitive Expands & Slows
Over Time Significantly
Market Independent The Growth of
Reduces the Size
Of Established Business Established Business
of the Old Market

Proactiveness
 Attributes of Disruptive/Radical
Technology products
Source: Deszca et al, 1999
Market/Consumers •New to Customer
•Tied to Emerging Customer Trends
•Shift Market Structures to Create New Customers
•Require Customer Learning, Acculturation &
Behavioural Change
•Longer Diffusion Process
•Create or Expand a New Category and/or Create
•Cross Category Competition

Product •Unpredictable Evolution

•Exist Outside Current Product Hierarchy
•Precede The Establishment of a Dominant Design
•Offer Unique Benefits

Technology •Infrastructure Change or Creation maybe Necessary

•Represent or Incorporate New, Innovative Technologies
•May Embody New Processes
 Challenge for Market Research

• An Estimated 38% of New Products Fail

To Progress Beyond Ideation. (Tidd et al,
2001)

• 40% of New Products in Consumer

Markets Fail After Launch (Jain, 2001)
 Key MR Questions
• What Should the Product
Contain?
• Who Might be Interested
in It?
• How They Might Use It?
• What Infrastructure is
Needed to Support It?
Are Current MR Techniques Addressing
These Issues Successfully?
Primary Research
Findings
 Traditional Approach To
Market Research

Traditional Approach:

Assumption: Customer Has Historical Experience with Similar Products

“Customer As Validator”

However:

•Customers Lack the Requisite Experience

•Lack of Information about Product’s Evolution

•Typical Measures Used (e.g. Market Size, Target Market)

 Market Research Moves On!

• Increased Focus on Co-development

• Customer Driven Market Research
• Usage of Observational MR Techniques:
– Ethnography
– Anthropology
– Lead User Analysis
 Philips: Research Methodology

Research Translation Testing

& & &
Analysis Creation Launch

Understanding Translating Values & Needs Putting Solutions Back

People’s Needs & Values Into Solutions Keeping the Into People’s Context To
From Everyday Life Context in the Forefront Increase Their Quality of
Life

“Co-Research and Co-Develop with Customers”

 Market Research Moves On!
Upside
Prototype Market Testing
•Assess Future Needs for Novel Products

•Include Customer Voice

•Allow Customer Identification

Customer Immersion
•Allow Direct Involvement with the Customer

•Explore Probable Characteristics of the Product

Lead User Analysis •Explore Probable Functionality of the Product

•Assess Required Support Infrastructure

 Areas of Future Focus

• Acknowledge Lack of Resemblance between

Lead Users and Late Adopters
• Acknowledge Lack of Resemblance between
Early Prototype & Actual Product
• Resolve Product Related Timing Issues
• Address all Key Success Factors:
» Infrastructure
» Regulatory Bodies
» Competition Response
 Un-served Sectors

Research Revealed

Fashion and Related Sectors Depend Less on

Design Related Market Research

Couture Designers See a One Way Flow of Ideas,

i.e. From The Designer to The Customer

Unwillingness to Change

However MR Plays an Important Role in

Store Design and other Ancillary Areas
 Model Basis:
Concurrent Engineering
Hoffman 1998

• CE:
– People From Different Disciplines Co-operate
to Specify and Design Products
– Focus on Refining Product through the
Development Process
– Encourages Parallel Product Development
– Timely Development of the Right New
Product
 Who Might be Interested ?
Secondary
Lead Innovators
•Scientists
Stakeholders
•Blogers
•Engineers
•Think Groups
•Programmers
•Government
Radical
Technology

Holding
Company

Early Adopters
Competitors

Imperial College London

 Multilevel Interactive Market
Research
Idea Generation Idea Testing Ideas
Customer Monitoring Shaping
Identification of Development of Test Tangible
Physical State Benefits
Feedback
Emergent Technologies

Development of Realign Efforts Realign Efforts

Market Oriented
Ideas

Research Continuum
 Stage 1: Idea Generation

Customer Monitoring
Identify Key Emergent
Technology Trends
Key Points to Observe:
•How Customers Use Existing
Products •Use Innovators to Help
•Understand Latent Needs Identify Tech Trends
•Develop an Understanding of How •Generate Idea Based
To Better The Experience Electronic Prototypes
(Don’t Look for What They Say, •Allow Innovation Adopter
Look for How and Why They Use Interaction
The Product)
Techniques:
Techniques: Development of Market Oriented Ideas •Visioning Techniques
•Lead User Analysis •Customer Interaction with Prototypes
•Ethnography •Brainstorming Between Consumers & Innovators
•Development of Idea to Physical State
Technique: Information Acceleration Method
 Visioning Techniques
• Develops an Informed Future Vision of The Customer
Needs

• Two Key Approaches:

– Projecting from Historical Experience
– Visioning Future :
• Delphi & Backstaging Techniques

– Key Benefits
• More Appropriate as No Historical Data Exists for Disruptive
Technologies
• Encourages Divergent Thinking
• Encourages Learning
• Reduces Entrapment in Past Markets and Product Conceptions
 The Information Acceleration
Method
• Employs Interactive Multimedia to Present Future Product and Usage
Scenarios to Customers

• Observance of Actual Consumer Behaviour

• Provides Robust Electronic Representations of Product without Prototyping:

– Allows for Multiple Versions to be Tested

– Shortens Development Time
– Accelerates Product Development Learning
– Reduces Ambiguity Risks

• Process Allows Engagement in Information Search and Decision Making

• Based on Behaviours, Researchers can Forecast and Simulate Future

Market Responses

Source: Deszca et al, 1999

 Stages 2 & 3:
Idea Shaping & Testing
Measure Perception &
Preference wrp Relevant
Available Alternatives

Allow Interaction with Align Managerial Development

Physical Prototypes Decision With Of
Consumer Response Physical State
Estimate Group Response

Aggregate Individual
Acceptance Measures

Techniques:
•Ethnography
•Focus Groups
•Lead User Analysis
 Stage 4: Feedback

Idea Testing Ideas Feedback

Idea Generation Shaping

Benefits:

•Establishes Organisational Learning

•Creates Customer Response Database
•Recognises Customer Need Pulses in Relevant Time
•Recognises Combinations of Stakeholder Responses to Products
Next Steps

•Focus on Co-Research &

Co-development

•Test the Theoretical Framework

for Robustness

•Explore MR Process for Smaller

Establishments/Scientists Locked
In a Lab
Discu ssion