General knowledge (introduction)

Question 1

Why involve customers and suppliers in innovation (NPD Projects)?

Answer 1

• Better acces to knowledge
• improved quality
• Lower cost
• better fit with customer needs
• more room for creativity

Question 2

What is involvment in innovation?

Answer 2

Supplier involvement:
- Resources they bring (capabilities, knowledge, Investments)
- Work they do
Customer involvement
- Participate in the decision making of a new product (idea stage to prototyoe)

Question 3

Challenges of Supplier/customer involvement?

Answer 3

E.g.

• Who owns the IP rights
• Find the right supplier or customer
• Difficult to control
• May involve organisational changes
• information flow
• disagreements
• Resistment of knowledge sharing

Question 4

Two types of knowledge sharings?

Answer 4

Supplementary knowledge:
Easy to share, similar products, Quick to do
Complementary knowledge: outside of the firms ekpertise, more difficult to transfer, dissimilar products

Question 5

The model by Aune and Greesetvold (2011)

Explain the the typology for supplier involvment. Hint: A matrice with four different involvments

Answer 5

Single or multiple scope of company involvment on the supplier side.
Low or high degree of cooperation between customer and supplier.
Single supplier-Low = e.g. paper for a printing Company.
Single supplier-high = e.g. typically be for more complex products perhaps with high degree of knowledge.
Multiple-low = e.g. more supplier needed but still simple products
Multiple-high = e.g. more supplier need for complex product /industrial products

Question 6

What is the value stages of supplier innovation?

Answer 6

Importance - understand the importance of supplier innovation
requirements - know the requirements (behovet)
Management - know how to manage
Outcome - benefit from the outcome

Question 7

What is supplier involvement in innovation?

Answer 7

Refers to the ressources they bring (capabilities, Investments, information, knowlegde, ideas)