The Customer-Dominated Innovation Process: Involving Customers as Designers and Decision-Makers in Developing New Product

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the mechanism of involving customers as designers and decision-makers in developing new product. This study describes results from in-depth case studies with three companies: Tokyoflash, Threadless, and LEGO. These firms are pioneers in enabling customers to engage in product design and development as both designers and decision-makers. This study is based on detailed in-depth interviews with senior managers within these firms, as well as interviews with participating customer-designers. A new Customer-Dominated Innovation Process is described, which highlights the critical role played by customer-designers and customer communities and challenges the role played by senior managers in traditional phase-review processes. In addition, the methods and key factors needed to enable this engagement are discussed. This new phenomenon challenges standard models of product development in which internal resources retain authority and expertise.

Keywords:

• customer-dominated
• new product development
• customer-designer
• innovation process

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the case companies that participated in this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Biographies

Wei Liu is the assistant dean and distinguished research fellow at the College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University. She accomplished her PhD at the University of Cambridge and was a visiting fellow at Harvard Business School. She was the overall winner of the ‘Dissertation Competition Award’ at the 2014 Global Doctoral Innovation Consortium organized by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). Her research interests are design management, product design and development, design for manufacturing, open innovation, and entrepreneurship.

James Moultrie is a senior lecturer in design at the University of Cambridge. Before joining academia, James worked in industry where he was awarded a ‘Scientific and Technical Academy Award’ for the design of movie lenses. James is widely recognized for his research examining the value of design to firms and nations, the role of design in scientific exploration, and, more recently, design for manufacture and assembly. A strong theme running throughout his research is the role of design in addressing broader societal challenges (sustainability, humanitarian issues, etc.).

Songhe Ye currently is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Manufacturing, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, conducting research on business design and technology management. Prior to joining Cambridge, he worked for nine years in industry and obtained an MBA degree from Tsinghua University with MBA exchange study at Stanford University. He is a member of both the British Academy of Management (BAM) and the Academy of Management (AOM).