Managerial implications for integrating customers into industrial product innovation

Abstract

Based on the case study analysis and conceptual model in chapter 5, this chapter investigates the managerial implications for integrating customers into product innovation projects in practice. Therefore, determinants and a decision model are derived from the theoretical propositions. The determinants provide a guideline for choosing an appropriate customer integration strategy, and the decision model presents a recommended organizational solution for product innovation that integrates the customer and thereby enables a company to develop new products that respond to evolving customer needs and requirements. For the development of the decision model, this chapter refers back to the Extreme Programming (XP) method from software engineering, which was the starting point of this research. Because XP provides a new perspective on customer integration and the product innovation process of industrial product development, the decision model developed for industrial product development is XP based.