Int. J.

Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103

Role of careful customer need assessment in product

innovation management—empirical analysis
H. K.arkk.ainen*, K. Elfvengren
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the important problems and development needs of product innovation
management in five manufacturing companies, particularly focusing on studying the role and importance of customer
need assessment in product innovation management.
The results indicate that customer need assessment is one of the major development needs in the product innovation
management of the studied business-to-business companies. The results gained from the multi-function analysis of the
companies facilitate the understanding of product innovation as a complex system that is affected in various ways by
the success of customer need assessment. The report for instance describes what kinds of problems and self-reinforcing
vicious loops, closely connected with the success of customer need analysis, are involved in product innovation
management. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Customer needs; Need assessment; Product innovation management; Product development; Manufacturing companies

1. Introduction directs product development and all the people

The management of the early phases of the
product innovation process is critical for the
success of the whole innovation management. A
significant part of the problems in the creation of
product innovations are related with the early
phases of product innovation and product defini-
tion (Cooper, 1998). According to Ichimura and
Ishii (1990), the purpose of product innovation
management (PIM) is the promotion of effective
new product development (NPD) and the timely
improvement of current products in line with the
company policy. Product innovation management
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-56212627; fax: +358-
56212667.
E-mail address: hannu.karkkainen@lut.fi (H. K.arkk.ainen).
taking part in the product development process to
make it possible for the company to create
successful, competitive product innovations and
to fulfill the company’s strategies.
A large number of extensive studies concerning
the success factors and best practices have been
carried out (e.g. Rothwell et al., 1974; Kulvik,
1977; Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Pinto and
Slevin, 1989; Rothwell, 1992; Cooper, 1993, 1998;
Griffin, 1997). These studies have searched for
factors that make product development in some
companies more successful than in others. Gen-
erally speaking, the factors that have been strongly
pointed out in these studies are the significance of
the early phases of product innovation (including
e.g. the opportunity identification, idea generation
and product definition phases) and the careful

0925-5273/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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86 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
assessment of market and customer needs for the
success of product development. However, few
studies have provided careful empirical analyses
on the significance of customer need analysis for
the success of the early phases of product
innovation, and the problems and complex rela-
tionships involved in this. An essential objective
for customer need assessment activities in compa-
nies is to produce useful information for the early
phases of product innovation, to be utilized for
instance in the planning, evaluation and prioritiza-
tion of new product development projects. In the
context of this study, customer need assessment is
understood broadly as the activities concerned
with the recognition, gathering and clarification of
customer needs and their importance to determine
need specifications and objectives for new products
(see Holt et al., 1984). Sometimes the concept is
extended to cover also the activities ensuring that
all the important needs are fulfilled (e.g. K.arkk-
a. inen et al., 2001a).
Several NPD studies (Ernst and Teichert, 1998;
Hustad, 1993; Gupta et al., 1988; Maidique and
Zirger, 1985), and studies investigating more speci-
fically the role of market information in new
product development (Ottum and Moore, 1997)
have emphasized the need for studies with more
interdisciplinary and multi-informant approaches to
better understand the complex, interdisciplinary
nature of new product development. The influence
of departmental views seems to be particularly
important in the context of assessing NPD pro-
cesses, because the successful development and
implementation of new products require the inte-
gration of specialized knowledge from different
organizational units (Brockhoff, 1994). According
to a meta-analysis of 47 empirical studies on the
NPD process (Montoya-Weiss and Calantone,
1994), most studies relied on a single information
source within each company, and only a few studies
included more than two respondents, multiple
hierarchical levels and/or functional departments.
The study of Ernst and Teichert (1998) investigating
particularly the issue of single-informant bias in
NPD research shows that there appears to be no
single reliable source of information within an
organization in the context of NPD, and NPD
research is subject to information bias if it is based
on sole informants only. The perceptual differences
of different company functions or hierarchical levels
may have a severe impact on managerial conclu-
sions drawn from benchmarking studies. Also Ernst
and Teichert recommend strongly the inclusion of
multiple informants in future NPD research and
benchmarking studies.
The purpose of this study is to determine the
important problems and development needs of
PIM in five Finnish high-tech manufacturing
companies, and to particularly focus on studying
the role and importance of customer need assess-
ment in the product innovation management,
utilizing information gathered from several repre-
sentatives of different NPD-related functions and
departments. The study focuses on the business
unit and company level. By ‘importance’ in the
context of this study we mean the (relative)
importance of customer need assessment as a
development need of PIM, and the commonness of
its importance in the studied companies. We will
study whether there exist detailed problems or
development needs in customer need assessment
concerning PIM that are commonly experienced as
important in the studied companies. Additionally,
we will tentatively analyze the interrelationships of
the problems or development needs of customer
need assessment with the other managerial pro-
blems of PIM. Our objective is not, however, to
make very in-depth and detailed analysis on the
opinion differences of different functions in this
particular study. We will also describe the devel-
oped systematical analysis process. Due to the
selected research approach, the study is partly
descriptive and partly exploratory in nature. For
instance statistically valid correlations between the
analyzed factors are not sought or aimed to be
proved in this study, and very straightforward
generalizations of the results cannot be made.
In the preparation stage of this research paper
we made an extensive literature search concerning
particularly the early phases and product defini-
tion activities of product development. We focused
on searching for studies with interdisciplinary,
multi-informant approaches for a comprehensive
picture of companies’ managerial problems, studies
that would aim to get a picture of the related mana
gerial problems and their important relationships,
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
and research that would study customer need
assessment as a part of product definition and the
early phases of product development and product
innovation. We utilized major library article
databases, and did a rather extensive review on
the articles of major scientific journals focusing on
the fields of management of technology and
marketing. We also utilized electronic article
databases like the IEEE electronic library, and
the proceedings of important conferences linked to
the field of R&D management. Additionally, we
utilized the results of our earlier, quite extensive
literature searches on customer need assessment of
particularly industrial product companies.
Few studies have carefully analyzed the role and
significance of customer need assessment concern-
ing the important managerial problems that exist
in the early phases of product innovation and
product definition. The above described and other
success factor studies found have not generally
analyzed the role and significance of individual
factors like customer need assessment in a very
detailed way, or analyzed carefully the relation-
ships of the different studied factors or managerial
problems. We found some studies that investigated
the role of market information for the success of
product development on a general level (e.g.
Ottum and Moore, 1997; Hart et al., 1999). The
study of Hart et al., discussed the effectiveness of
market information in enhancing new product
success rates, producing a quite general conceptual
framework for the research in this area. The study
by Ottum and Moore (1997) was one of the rare
exceptions that utilized respondents from several
functions (R&D, marketing, manufacturing),
studying the statistical relationships between
market information processing and new product
success. Neither study did, however, investigate
the matter on the managerial level, studying for
instance the relationships of market information
processing to the actual managerial problems of
product development.
2. Developed analysis approach
Managers of different departments have often
different, partly contradictory opinions about the
87
problems in product development, and particu-
larly about their causes. The chains of problems
and their causes can be long and quite complex in
product development, and they can be very
difficult to analyze without systematical, illustra-
tive methods. The purpose of the developed
analysis approach was to clarify the important
problems and development needs of product
innovation management at the whole company
or business unit level. With particular emphasis on
the role and significance of customer need assess-
ment in product innovation management, this
study aims to help create a larger picture of the
problems, their reasons and consequences. This is
vital for clarifying the managerial problems in the
product innovation management, including com-
munication problems. In this chapter, we will
describe the systematic analysis approach devel-
oped for the above purpose.
According to Senge (1990), systems thinking is
about seeing the whole instead of separate details,
and seeing interrelationships instead of static
snapshots. He argues strongly for illustrative ways
to uncover and improve the existing mental
models of individuals, which are quite often
incomplete, and different from each other, to
achieve a better common understanding and to
facilitate effective learning in organizations. He
states that many insights into new markets or
organizational practices fail to get put into
practice because they conflict with powerful, tacit
mental models. ‘Mental models’ are deeply rooted,
often quite unconscious assumptions, generaliza-
tions or pictures that influence how individuals
understand the world and how they take action.
Senge adds that it is impossible for a shared
picture of the system as a whole to emerge in
normal conversation. One important problem is
that cause and effect are not closely related in
space and time, for instance in the case of many
managerial problems, even though people
normally presume that they are closely related.
One rather simple tool, causal maps, can be
used to organize different persons’ different
opinions about problems and their causes in an
illustrative way, and to focus the attention on
realizing and analyzing the interrelationships
between these factors. Causal maps offer much
88 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
information in an illustrative, relatively compact
format.
Cognitive mapping is a qualitative technique
designed to identify cause and effect as well as to
explain causal links (Eden, 1989; Eden and
Ackermann, 1992), and used for structuring,
analyzing and making sense of accounts of
problems (Ackermann et al., 1993), the accounts
being verbal (for instance presented in interviews)
or documentary. Managerial cognitive maps (like
causal maps), which can include even rather
simplified presentations of complex systems like
industrial markets, are important in effective
managerial decision making for several reasons.
According to Huff (1990), some important benefits
of managerial maps are that they activate self-
correcting action, serving to update a static
representation of a changing world. The maps
provide a frame, albeit a flawed or simplified one,
within which experience can be understood.
Discrepancies between the maps and current
experience stand out because comparison is made
possible. Huff also argues that for the strategic
management, mapping can specify differences in
perception among individuals and chart the
progress of argumentation within a group.
According to Kwahk and Kim (1999) the
concepts ‘cognitive maps’ and ‘causal maps’ are
often used rather synonymously when speaking of
diagrams that capture cause–effect or means–end
relationships. Causal maps and cognitive maps
have been fairly widely used among the techniques
for cognitive modeling (see e.g. Eden, 1989; Huff,
1990; Senge, 1990). They have been commonly
utilized for example in strategic planning and
organizational studies (Huff, 1990). In our litera-
ture research we found a number of rather recent
studies with cognitive or causal maps for instance
in the analysis of the growth of SMEs (Ennis,
1999), business process redesign (Kwahk and Kim,
1999), supply chain management (Akkermans
et al., 1999), conducting qualitative research into
entrepreneurial decision making in SMEs (Hines,
2000) and the modeling of the R&D domain
(Meyersdorf and Dori, 1997). Studies with slightly
similar types of research approaches and implica-
tions concerning managerial decision making and
complex causal interrelationships of managerial
problems were found for instance in the areas of
supply chain management and the assessment of
managerial decision making process on the issue of
growth in SMEs. These studies emphasized the
importance of common goal setting and close
functional co-operation in solving the studied
managerial problems. The study by Meyersdorf
and Dori (1997) deals with system modeling in the
R&D domain, but its focus is essentially on
presenting a practical tool employing an object-
process analysis, not very much on the analysis of
the R&D domain itself. One of the few holistic
NPD front-end studies found (Khurana and
Rosenthal, 1998) includes interviews of several
R&D related functions in several companies.
Khurana and Rosenthal provide a process view
of the front-end activities, discussing the key
success factors for managing the front-end activ-
ities of NPD. Their findings from a number of in-
depth case studies concerning the front-end
practices of US and Japanese companies suggest
that the greatest success comes to organizations
that take a holistic approach to the front-end, for
instance effectively linking business strategy, pro-
duct strategy and product-specific decisions. Their
study does not include a more careful analysis of
causal interrelationships of managerial problems
and has no particular emphasis on the role of
customer need assessment in the front-end activ-
ities. The majority of the found studies on product
definition and early phases of product innovation
had collected data from the perspective of only one
or two functions. We found very few studies with
comprehensive multifunctional approaches and in-
depth interviews, similar to our approach, that
were directly focused on the early phases of
product innovation and customer need assessment.
The main phases, tasks and outputs of the
developed research approach are presented in
Appendix A.
Basically, the developed approach consists of
personnel interviews, group meetings with the
interviewed persons and, essentially, three differ-
ent analyses (frequency analysis, causal analysis
and importance analysis) to form an extensive,
holistic company-level view of development needs
and means. In this study, the terms ‘problems’ and
‘development needs’ are used partly synonymously,
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
but ‘development needs’ can include also factors
that are aimed to be improved, even though the
companies would not consider them directly as
problems.
Success factor studies (see above) were an
important starting point when planning the
company interviews for our study. We defined
the important areas and factors to be studied in
our analysis partly on the basis of the above
mentioned success factor studies, utilizing also a
developed general system model for product
innovation management. A more detailed descrip-
tion of the product innovation management
model, its utilization in the planning of the
interviews as well as in the determination of
related important studied issues, and the list of
the important topics included in the interviews has
been given in Piippo et al. (1998). Customer need
assessment (e.g. its organization, systems, proce-
dures and tools) was one of these major topics
studied in the interviews. Need assessment was
studied particularly from the viewpoint of product
development and product innovation manage-
ment. Some other, closely related important topics
of the interviews were the critical success factors of
the company in serving the customer, the informa-
tion flows in the definition and development of
products, as well as the strengths, weaknesses,
problems and development needs of product
development, among others.
Five medium- and large-sized Finnish manufac-
turing companies operating in the metal and
electronics industries participated in this analysis.
The studied companies make products mainly for
other companies. They have complex, long busi-
ness chains of stakeholders that set various
requirements for the products, and the definition
of the concept ‘customer’ can be rather ambiguous
in these business chains. They operate in many
different market segments, which often have very
different requirements for products and product
development. Most of the segments of the
companies have high quality and performance
requirements. The companies aim to be market or
technology leaders in selected market segments.
The companies’ annual turnover ranges from 50
million US$ to 3 billion US$ and the number of
employees from 300 to 20,000. All the companies
89
operate globally and the majority of their turnover
comes from export sales. All the companies are
facing strong or at least moderate international
competition.
The companies were considered to have been
successful in their product development. They
utilize various demanding advanced technologies
in their products and production and make high-
tech products. Almost all the companies seek
growth through product development of their
own. Most of the companies have earlier empha-
sized technology push rather strongly in their
product development, but presently seek more
market-pull product development projects.
The companies described above were selected
for this study because they have actively developed
their product development management systems
and they wanted to develop their PIM further. All
the studied companies had a formally described
product development management model. The
companies agreed to participate in a large,
common research project conducted by the
authors, focusing on the early phase management
of product innovation, which made it possible to
carry out the extensive multi-function interviews in
each company. We incorporated in the ‘multi-
function’ interviews also some ‘non-functions’, like
quality.
In each studied company, about 10 representa-
tives of business management, R&D management,
marketing, sales, manufacturing, after sales and
quality were separately interviewed. Together with
persons responsible for the management of R&D,
we selected for the interviews persons and func-
tions that were evaluated to be critical for the
success of product development. We carried out
semi-structured in-depth interviews, by which we
mean an interview process with open-ended
questions, aiming to gain a range of insights on
specific issues. The process was partially guided,
and it allowed more specific questions to be
phrased on the basis of the answers. We utilized
a rough interview framework with pre-determined
topics, and prepared also a list of more detailed
questions. The interviews took about 2 hours
per interviewee, and for the most part two
researchers participated in the interviews to
diminish the possibility of a biased interpretation
90 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
of the interviews, and to increase the reliability of
the interview results. Agreeing that the opinions
of the individual interviewees were to be kept
confidential, we aimed to clarify the practical tasks
of the interviewee, his opinions and the actual
information transfer as openly and honestly as
possible, not how things should be carried out
according to company models and instructions.
The interviews were recorded and carefully
documented, and they were checked for correct-
ness by the interviewees. The personal interview
documents were reviewed and analyzed company
by company. The similar and differing opinions of
the interviewed department representatives were
examined. The frequencies of the most common
problems were determined from different personal
interview documents to point out development
needs that were the most agreed on as being
important development needs concerning PIM and
the well-being of the whole company. Causal
analysis was used to combine the different
individual opinions into a larger picture and to
find the possible bottlenecks, causes and effects of
problems of PIM mentioned in the interviews.
After this, a summarizing analysis was made for
each of the companies.
The company level analysis clarified the most
common development needs in each individual
company. The review and evaluation of company
level results was done in company-specific semi-
nars, which were moderated by the authoring
researchers. Almost all the interviewed persons
took part in these seminars. In order to validate
the results, to facilitate the development of a broad
consensus and to ensure a strong commitment to
the further actions, for instance Ernst and Teichert
(1998) have also been strongly in favor for the
performing of the described type of company
seminars in context with particularly multi-func-
tional NPD studies.
The results of the analysis (common develop-
ment needs, causal maps and self-reinforcing
loops) were used as a basis for conversation
between different functions, which created exten-
sive and fruitful discussions in the company
seminars. For example the causal maps were used
to study and show the participants the complex
relationships of different development needs and
opinions. The representatives of the departments
voted for the importance of the clarified develop-
ment needs. Common and dissenting opinions
concerning the promotion of PIM were clarified
from the voting results. The ones that were most
disagreed upon by different persons or depart-
ments were discussed to find reasons for the
disagreement.
After the individual company reviews, the
results from different companies’ individual ana-
lyses and reviews were combined. We executed
inter-company comparisons by comparing the
results of the frequency analyses, voting and the
built causal maps to clarify commonly important
development needs, as well as to study the
similarities of the found self-reinforcing loops.
We describe the main analyses in more detail
below.
2.1. Frequency analysis
The most common and important development
needs of the studied companies were clarified
through frequency analysis and voting. The aim
of the frequency analysis was to describe and
emphasize the essential development needs that
several interviewed persons from the different
company functions had pointed out, and on the
significance of which there existed some kind of
consensus. The most essential development needs
of PIM concerning the well being of the whole
company should be expected to be found among
those that were pointed out in this analysis.
First, each company’s interviews were reviewed
separately. Development needs that arose fre-
quently in the different interviews were picked
out, and their number in different interviews was
counted. This was continued until no new frequent
development needs were found. Sometimes single
statements were combined for the sake of practi-
cality. However, the actual words of the inter-
viewee were tried not to be interpreted and biased
when combining the statements. The degree of
objectivity of the development needs determined in
the interview analysis was improved by the fact
that two researchers participated in the interviews
and the analyses. Both researchers checked
the clarified development needs to avoid wrong
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
interpretations. Finally, the development needs
were arranged on the basis of their frequency,
starting from the most frequent ones. The results
of the analysis were presented in company-specific
seminars, giving the interviewees a chance to verify
the results by including the persons’ names in the
frequency table. The development needs were also
briefly gone through in the company seminars
before the voting, and discussed by the partici-
pants who had been interviewed in the companies.
2.2. Causal analysis
The purpose of the cause–effect analysis was to
clarify the most important causes and effects of the
important development needs and problems men-
tioned in the interviews. The cause–effect analyses
were executed with the help of causal maps. The
building process of the causal maps was started
with the most common, essential problems of
product innovation management in the companies,
which were placed for central nodes in the causal
maps. The interviewed persons’ different perspec-
tives of the causes and consequences of these most
common problems were first put into other nodes
of the causal map. For this reason, we mapped all
the causal statements in individual persons’ inter-
view documents concerning these problems. The
interviewed persons’ different perspectives of the
causes and consequences of problems were then
illustrated with the help of arrows drawn between
the nodes of the map. Finally, additional nodes
and arrows illustrating the potential causes and
consequences of major problems were added into
the map on the basis of the interviewers’ findings
of the same company.
2.3. Importance analysis and voting
It is not possible to define priorities for
development needs on the basis of frequency
analysis only. It may well be that persons that
have not mentioned certain development needs,
e.g. the ones presented in the table, still think that
they are important. In the evaluation of the
importance of the development needs, importance
of voting and causal maps with the most essential
relationships of frequently mentioned develop-
91
ment needs were used. The priorities were eval-
uated in company-specific seminars by asking the
group of persons that participated originally in the
interviews to vote for the most important and
urgent development needs by giving them a score
from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest score (the most
important and most urgent). No restrictions were
given concerning the allocation of different rat-
ings. In each company, about 15 development
needs that were mentioned most often were
included in the vote.
The development needs were listed in an
importance order defined by the average of the
scores given to each development need. It was also
verified, which development needs were most
agreed and disagreed on. The resulting table was
used as a framework for the following conversa-
tion. The conversation was directed to the most
important development needs, and particularly the
ones that were the most disagreed upon. It was
also made sure that both the company participants
and the researchers understood the most impor-
tant and the disagreed issues correctly and in a
similar way.
Due to the confidentiality concerning the
strategic issues of PIM, the results were decided
to be reported in a fairly general format. For
instance the results of individual companies are
not reported separately in detail in this study, and
the detailed results of the voting concerning all the
PIM development priorities of the companies are
not included.
3. Results of empirical studies
According to the frequency analysis, the most
often mentioned development needs and problems
of PIM (company-specific results of the frequency
analysis have been presented in our earlier paper
(Piippo et al., 1998)) in the studied five companies
were:
* competitor analysis is not carried out system-
atically,
* prioritization of product development projects
should be developed,
92 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
* business demands or strategies do not direct
R&D sufficiently,
* customer needs are not assessed systematically.
Most of the interviewed persons in a majority
of the studied companies experienced the
above as important development needs in their
companies, or experienced serious problems in
them. According to the frequency analysis,
the first two issues, unsystematical competitor
analysis and prioritization of projects were
most commonly raised in the interviews; a
majority of interviewees raised them up in four
out of the five studied companies, while the others
were raised up by a majority in three out of the five
companies.
As well the representatives of those functions
that were responsible for gathering the customer
needs data (commonly sales, marketing and after-
sales), as those that utilized it (e.g. product and
business development) and those that were addi-
tionally affected by the deficiencies in the need
information (production, quality, after sales),
raised up the issue of unsystematical customer
need assessment in the interviews in all the studied
companies. Considering the different studied
functions, most commonly the issue was raised
up by the business management, R&D and
marketing: about three out of four persons that
raised up this issue represented, rather equally, one
of these functions, and the differences of the
frequencies between these functions were quite
small. The remaining one fourth represented
rather evenly other functions like production,
quality, sales and after sales. There were no
important differences between the different com-
panies concerning this issue.
When the results of the interviews were studied
concerning the more detailed opinions about the
most problematic issues related to customer
need assessment in successful product inno-
vation management, we found some similar
types of issues that were particularly strongly
emphasized in the interviews by several persons
from different functions in all or almost all the
studied companies, and there seemed to be some
kind of consensus between different functions
about their existence and importance. Such
common major problems or development needs
were
(D1) better ability to recognize customers’ future
needs,
(D2) improvement of direct contacts and co-
operation between the product develop-
ment and customers and
(D3) more organized and careful co-operation
with the most advanced lead-customers.
In addition to the above, the major customer
need assessment-related, rather detailed problems
in the development of successful innovations
that were more company-specifically emphasized
were
(D4) facilitation of customer need assessment
particularly in new markets,
(D5) insufficient dissemination of customer need
information,
(D6) insufficient utilization of need information
possessed by sales/marketing,
(D7) inadequate knowledge of those actually
making the purchasing decision and whose
needs should be clarified in complex custo-
mer chains of business-to-business markets,
(D8) need for more systematic discussion with
customers about their needs and require-
ments instead of the present rather free-
form discussions, and
(D9) better definition of common and dissenting
needs of different customers and customer
segments.
According to the causal analysis of the interview
statements, the found potential root causes (see
Fig. 1) for the above customer need assessment
problems and for the ineffectiveness of the
customer need assessment activities that were most
commonly emphasized in the interviews in differ-
ent companies were problems related to
(R1) deficiencies in companies’ product pro-
cesses,
(R2) insufficient resources and available time,
(R3) unclear responsibilities, and in some cases,
(R4) lack of suitable need assessment tools.
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103 93

Customer need assessment problems

and development needs

Root Potential
causes intermediary
factors Common problems and development needs

(R1) ... (D1) Future needs

(D2) Direct contacts
Further PIM
problems (e.g.
(R2) ... (D3) Lead-customers specification
(R3) ... changes _ see
below) and
(R4) ... Company-specific problems and development needs vicious loops
(D4) - (D9)

Fig. 1. Customer need assessment-related problems and development needs in the PIM of the studied companies.

It was not, however, always easy to determine
which were the actual root causes, and the
opinions of different persons concerning the
potential root causes or the interrelationships of
causes and effects varied quite much: for instance,
some persons emphasized the lack of resources as
an important cause for the other problems, while
other persons were quite positive that straightfor-
ward increase in resources would not solve the
important PIM problems. Some of these problems
of Finnish companies related to resources, respon-
sibilities and need assessment tools have been
discussed in closer detail in our other studies (see
e.g. K.arkk.ainen et al., 2001a, b).
According to the importance voting in the
company-specific seminars, the presented develop-
ment needs in Table 1 were among the top two
development priorities of PIM in the interviewed
companies (also the other priorities have been
included in Table 1, marked with brackets).
Four of these nine development needs (marked
with b) are very closely related to the thorough
understanding of customers and their needs. Four of
the studied companies voted at least one of these
four development needs among the top two devel-
opment priorities. The development need concern-
ing segmentation is a rather closely related issue, as
well, and the insufficient development of new
solutions and products may result at least partly
from the lack of suitable kind of customer and
market information or its insufficient utilization.
The individual development need ‘unsystemati-
cal assessment of customer needs’ was quite
commonly felt to be an essential development
need in the companies. In three companies it was
among the top three development priorities and
in the fourth it was the fifth highest in priority.
The corresponding more specific priorities of the
development needs were the 1st (companies A and
E), 3rd (B), 5th (D) and 12th (C).
In three of the studied companies, customer
need assessment related development needs in
general were of particularly high importance: in
two companies (A and E), unsystematical custo-
mer need assessment was the number one devel-
opment priority, the corresponding vote averages
being 10.0 and 8.5 on the scale 1–10. In company
A, all the voters and in company E, half of the
voters voted it to be a development need of very
high importance (giving an importance rating of 9
or 10 on the scale 1–10). In the case company B,
unsystematical customer need assessment was the
third highest priority (average of votes 8.3, three
out of eight voters giving a very high importance
rating), the company’s top two priorities (priority
1: ‘R&D has too little experience about the
customers’ business and operation’ (average 8.5),
priority 2: ‘communication between R&D and
marketing is inadequate’ (average 8.4)) being both
quite closely related to the careful understanding
of customers and their needs. All the rest of
the voters in companies A, B and E gave an
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Table 1
Top two development priorities of PIM in the studied companies

Company

Development needs of PIM A B C Da E

PRI SCR PRI SCR PRI SCR PRI SCR PRI SCR
b
Customer needs are not assessed systematically 1 10.0 (3) 8.3 (12) 6.6 (5) 2.4 1 8.5
No systematic ways for assessing customers’ business environment 2 9.4 (7) 7.3
and future needsb
R&D has too little experience about customers’ business and operationb 1 8.5 (11) 1.9
Communication between R&D and marketing is inadequateb 2 8.4 (5) 7.9
Totally new solutions and products are not developed sufficiently (9) 7.0 1 9.3 (9) 6.8
R&D has too few resources (11) 4.6 2 8.6 (15) 5.3
Company strategies do not direct R&D sufficiently (9) 6.9 1 3.1 (6) 7.6
Segmentation and its exploitation in product development should 2 2.6
be facilitated
Prioritization of product development projects should be developed (7) 7.3 (8) 7.0 (9) 2.0 2 8.3

PRI=Priority.
SCR=Average of voting scores.
a
Different scale (1–4) was used instead of 1–10 scale (by request of company representatives).
b
Development need closely related to thorough understanding of customer needs.

importance rating of 7 or 8 (corresponding to The other development needs seeming to be

relatively high development importance) to this
issue. The very high development importance
voters consisted of the representatives of business
management, marketing and R&D (at least one of
each of the above functions in all the above three
companies). In addition to these functions, in
company E one representative of production voted
for a very high development importance.
The other development needs with the highest-
ranking priorities in different companies were very
dispersed: only one other individual development
need, ‘‘the lack of communication between R&D
and sales/marketing’’ was ranked among the top 5
priorities, i.e. among the top third of the voted
issues, in more than one of the studied companies
(with priorities 2 and 5 in companies B and E).
According to the comments in the company
interviews, even this development need is partly
connected to the better understanding and careful
communication of customers’ needs to the persons
utilizing the information. We also attempted
categorization and combination of different devel-
opment needs in various ways, but this did not
bring up any new larger topics of high common
importance.
closely related to the careful understanding of
customers’ and markets’ needs that were rated
among the highest development priorities in at
least one of the studied companies were ‘no
systematic ways for assessing customers’ business
environment and future needs’ (priority 2 in the
company evaluating unsystematical customer need
assessment as the most important development
need), and ‘segmentation and its exploitation
should be facilitated’’ (priority 2 in the company
evaluating unsystematical customer need assess-
ment as the 5th development need).
When the votes concerning customer need
assessment were evaluated in more detail, in total
14 out of 37 persons (=38%) participating in the
company-specific seminars and voting for the
importance of the development needs, experienced
unsystematical customer need assessment as a
development need of very high importance (rating
9 or 10 on the scale 1–10, or 4 on the scale 1–4).
Four out of 37 voters (=11%) experienced it to be
a relatively unimportant (correspondingly on the
two scales p5 or p2) development need; three of
these represented R&D and one marketing (all
these four voters were from companies in which
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H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
the issue was not among the top three priorities).
When comparing the standard deviation of votes
in each company, the variation of the given
importance votes concerning unsystematic custo-
mer need assessment was among the four smallest
ones in all the studied companies, when there were
on average 15 issues to vote for.
Prior to the importance votings described
above, we searched for the causes for the most
commonly mentioned problems in the interview
documents as well as other interrelationships
between the managerial problems. The determined
causes and effects were described in causal maps.
Detailed causal maps, including about 40–70
nodes, were built for each studied company.
Fig. 2 gives an example of one such causal map.
The example is a reduced and revised version of
the real causal map of one of the studied
companies.
The individuals from different departments
participating in the development of new products
had a tendency to claim in the interviews that most
of the problems in product innovation manage-
ment were caused by other departments than their
...
...
Too many parallel
Needed technologies
not developed in
...
advance
Too long duration
of projects
Unexpected changes
in markets
New requirements
raised from sales
and marketing
Competitor analyses not
...
systematic enough
Fig. 2. An example of a revised and reduced causal map in one of the studied companies.
95
own. However, the causalities between managerial
problems could be very complex: for example,
marketing claimed that they had to require
changes in product specifications because the
product development took a too long time. On
the other hand, the R&D experienced that product
development took a long time because marketing
requested changes in the specifications. What
made the situation tough to handle was that both
parties could actually be right from their own
standpoint.
We utilized the causal maps to recognize
important problems common for the studied
companies and the common causes for these
problems, as well as potentially effective ways to
affect the problems from the whole companies’
point of view. These results have been earlier
reported in more detail in Piippo et al. (1998).
Problems related to the clarification of customer
needs seemed to be a common and important early
cause for the major managerial PIM problems in
the studied companies. They were found in the
early parts of causal chains that lead to other
managerial problems, and they also affected a
projects / tasks Difficulties in project
prioritization
...
Additional work for
projects / R&D
...
Poor product
family planning
Changes in project
specifications Global vs. local
needs not defined
... Too few
specifications fixed
96 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
large number of other PIM problems. These close
links with the major PIM problems have been
analyzed also in Koivuniemi et al. (1999). The
need assessment-related problems seemed to have
close links with the potential self-reinforcing loops
(described below) of important managerial PIM
problems recognized in the causal maps. The self-
reinforcing loops of problems are also called
‘vicious loops’ in this study. Below, we will
describe and analyze more carefully the self-
reinforcing (vicious) loops of important manage-
rial problems recognized in the causal maps, and
study some of their important links to the careful
clarification and utilization of customer needs.
An important phase in analyzing the interviews
and the built causal maps was to look for potential
self-reinforcing loops. In self-reinforcing vicious
loops one problem can directly, or via intermediate
factors, increase other problems, which, in turn,
make the initial problem worse. Fig. 2 illustrates
some vicious loops marked with stronger lines
which were found in the causal map of the studied
company.
At least one potential self-reinforcing vicious
loop was found in every studied company. Most of
the studied five companies had several potential
vicious loops. We presented the company-specific
causal maps and the found potential self-reinfor-
cing vicious loops in the company-specific semi-
nars, which almost all the interviewed persons
participated in. The causalities in the causal maps
were discussed. Particularly the self-reinforcing
vicious loops were of great interest for the seminar
participants, and their existence and potential
significance was discussed. On the basis of these
discussions and later discussions with persons
responsible for R&D in each company (R&D
leaders and managers), the existence of vicious
loops was generally accepted, and they were
experienced to be potentially significant consider-
ing the success of PIM. No seminar participants
actually questioned their existence or significance.
Several seminar participants said the causal maps
and the vicious loops helped them to understand
better the aspects of PIM from the standpoint of
the whole company and the other functions. The
maps were experienced to illustrate the company
reality quite well, helping to understand why
problems existed and why the improvement of
the situation was quite challenging. Some respon-
sible R&D leaders or managers found the causal
maps and self-reinforcing vicious loops to be very
illustrative, and they intended to utilize the maps
to facilitate the product development and PIM.
We compared the built causal maps of different
companies, and found some similarities in the
recognized self-reinforcing vicious loops. The
important common factors in all the vicious loops
of the studied companies were:
* too many simultaneous projects under execu-
tion with respect to available resources,
* too long duration of development projects,
* reliability problems and incompleteness of
delivered products,
* changes in set project specifications and goals
during late development phases.
The above problems also affected each other:
quite commonly in different companies, the late
changes in specifications increased the workload of
product development, increasing the number of
simultaneous projects, which increased the dura-
tion of projects. The long duration caused pressure
to add further requirements that were raised from
the changes in market and customer needs, which
again increased the original problems. All the
above problems were affected by a number of
other management problems, as well.
Changes in product specifications were a sig-
nificant problem in the vicious loops (see Fig. 2
above) of the studied companies. They were
located in the earliest phases of the self-reinforcing
loops and in the definition phase of products,
affecting the other problems in the later develop-
ment phases in the vicious loops and a large
number of other managerial problems as well (for
an illustration, see Fig. 3). They were quite directly
affected by the success of customer need assess-
ment activities; the other common features of the
loops were concerned with later development
phases, being affected by several very different
kinds of problems but not quite so directly by the
need assessment activities. Also several extensive
success factor studies by Cooper (e.g. Cooper,
1993, 1996) emphasize strongly the importance of
the early product definition phases for the success
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103 97

Direct
causes for
Early PIM specification
problems changes

... (i)
... (ii) Specification
changes
Found vicious loops
Further PIM problems
... (iii)
... (iv-vi)
Fig. 3. Illustrative description of the causalities concerning the studied specification changes.

Table 2
Common direct causes for specification changes

(i) Available need information not properly communicated to specification phase

Need information possessed by sales & marketing not utilized enougha
All needs and product requirements not communicated to R&D in timeb

(ii) Communicated need information not useful enough for proper product specification
Opinions of individual strong personalities or persons in higher positions affect the specification process too much
Sales and marketing not motivated to specify their requirements carefullyb
Time-horizon of need information used for product specification too short
Actual customer needs not included in specifications, specifications too technical ) difficulties in estimating required changes for
products in an early stage, which are due to e.g. changes in markets

(iii) Insufficient commitment for determined specifications

Sales and marketing not being committed to what they earlier required and changing their opinionsb
Changes in markets that happen during the long development time forcing changes to product specificationsa
Marketing not understanding properly how extensively the demanded specification changes affect the whole development processb
Sales and marketing not (having time to be) present during sessions included in specification process ) no proper understanding of
product and specifications ) too late observation of wrong specifications
a
Emphasized by marketing/sales.
b
Emphasized by R&D.

of NPD, including the product concept, require-
ment and specification determination; Cooper
(1996) also adds that in spite of the early product
definition being consistently cited as a key to
success, companies continue to perform poorly in
this matter. These were some reasons why we
analyzed the causes for specification changes more
carefully.
We studied and described the various presented
reasons for specification changes on the basis of
company interviews. We also preliminarily cate-
gorized the found causes. On the general level, the
most common direct causes for specification
changes extracted from the interviews could be
categorized into the topics shown in Table 2.
There were also quite company-specific causes
that were mainly concerned with established
company procedures and processes. These in-
cluded
(iv) financing and specification decisions being
made in separate units,
(v) too few issues concerning the products being
fixedly specified in the design phase, and
(vi) dissenting requirements of different business
units being improperly considered in R&D.
The stated reasons for specification changes
varied slightly, depending on the function being
asked: for instance, marketing and sales empha-
sized the long duration of development in the
98 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
interviews, while R&D emphasized often that the
customer and market requirements were not
recognized, or they were not clearly stated and
communicated. Most of the clarified causes for
changes seemed to be closely linked with inade-
quate co-operation between R&D, marketing and
sales in the product definition. Very commonly the
specification changes were caused or seriously
affected by failure to clarify or communicate
long-term customer needs to persons involved in
the specification process.
4. Discussion and conclusions
In three of the studied five companies, customer
need assessment-related development needs were
of very high importance compared with develop-
ment priorities of other development needs of
product innovation management, and in just one
of the studied companies customer need assess-
ment matters were not among the topmost
development priorities.
Commonly speaking, the other studied develop-
ment needs were (company-widely) experienced to
be among the top development priorities only in
individual companies, seemingly being relatively
company-specific in nature. The only development
need that was quite generally felt to be among the
most important development needs concerning the
facilitation of PIM was unsystematical customer
need assessment.
These empirical results probably at least par-
tially reflect the fundamental complexity and
challengingness of market need and customer need
assessment particularly for companies that operate
at industrial markets (Webster, 1991; Kotler, 1991;
see also the empirical study of Hanna et al., 1995),
and the complexity of industrial products in
general (Griffin, 1997). We were not able to make
comparisons between the consumer and business-
to-business sector companies, as this study was
carried out in business-to-business companies in
particular. Still, the results of this study seem to be
rather well in line with the experienced deficiency
and high importance of the area of market analysis
in business-to-business companies suggested by
the study of Hanna et al. (1995). In addition, the
results of our multi-functional approach comple-
ment the results of Hanna et al., and other related
similar types of single-function NPD studies
concerning the significance of market need assess-
ment.
As typical for case research, it is not possible to
generalize the results directly to apply them to
other companies’ effective PIM facilitation be-
cause of the small sample of studied companies,
and thus they can be directly applied only to the
studied individual companies. Still, due to the
experienced common relative importance of cus-
tomer need assessment-related development needs
in companies of different sizes, market types and
businesses, we consider it likely that they are quite
important in the effective improvement of other
business-to-business companies’ product innova-
tion management, as well.
Several company functions, not only the more
commonly in literature studied R&D and market-
ing, raised the issue of improving customer need
assessment as one of the major development needs
in the effective facilitation of PIM. This means
that the different functions (particularly in the
companies evaluating systematical customer need
assessment as one of the topmost development
priorities) almost company-widely realized the
significance of careful customer need assessment
and experienced its facilitation as important for
the success of the product innovation and the
whole company. As the significance was so widely
recognized by different functions, some further
(both pragmatic and academic) questions should
be raised: Why was the issue so commonly a
company-widely recognized high-priority develop-
ment need in the studied companies? It may, for
instance, be highly challenging to effectively
facilitate the individual sub-processes of product
innovation like customer need assessment, due to
the complex and interdisciplinary nature of
product innovation, taking properly into consider-
ing the success of the whole company and the
different related company functions, added to the
above mentioned complexity and challengingness
of industrial market need assessment in itself. New
illustrative and innovative ways to solve the
problems involved in this complexity should be
discovered and studied. The interviewees also
 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
rather commonly raised issues like insufficient
resources allocated to customer need assessment
activities and unclear responsibilities of tasks
related to the clarification and dissemination of
need information. If the importance of systema-
tical customer need assessment is commonly and
company-widely recognized, why are the allocated
resources still too scarce? Are there difficulties in
motivating the investments in the facilitation of
customer need assessment for the top manage-
ment, or are the problems mainly related to the
particular way the product innovation and custo-
mer need assessment tasks are organized in the
studied companies? These are some questions that
need to be further analyzed in the future research.
Even though it was not the focus of this
particular study, we find that a more detailed
study on the opinion differences between different
company functions would be useful in the future
research on the in-depth understanding and
development of the NPD processes (see also e.g.
Ernst and Teichert (1998) who emphasize the
usefulness of the information on functional and
hierarchical opinion variances in their study).
The most common more detailed problems or
development needs concerned with customer need
assessment were related to the assessment of future
needs, the direct contacts of the R&D to customers
and the co-operation with advanced lead-custo-
mers. The significance of these problems is
additionally emphasized by the fact that not only
one but many different functions closely connected
with the success of product innovation experienced
them as important. Therefore, the relevance and
the solving of the above problems should be
seriously considered in the companies. On the
basis of our own rather extensive survey in Finnish
business-to-business companies (K.arkk.ainen et al.,
2001b), our experience and in-depth interviews in a
number of other Finnish companies of different
sizes and industries, as well as a number of studies
in the related literature, we think it very likely that
particularly the above commonly found problems,
and also the customer need assessment-related
problems raised in the individual companies will
be problematic in companies more generally.
However, it is probable that the solutions for
these problems are often very company-specific
99
due to the different company cultures, existing
product processes and procedures, and several
other factors.
The studied companies experienced the results
concerning the found common and company-
specific development needs as significant and
useful. At least two development projects were
started in individual companies (companies A and
B) to solve their own important customer need
assessment-related problems. The company-speci-
fic interview results were experienced as an
important and useful starting point when deter-
mining the more detailed objectives for the
development projects. The projects of companies
A and B dealt with efficient gathering, useful
organization, and interpretation of customer need
data for product development purposes. Probably
at least partly due to the success of the applied
research process, the different company functions
were quite unanimous about the importance of
starting the above development projects, and they
were deeply committed to participating in these
projects. Additionally, due to the experienced
common importance of the matter, one company
seminar was arranged with representatives from all
the studied five companies where different issues
concerning the systematic assessment of customer
needs were discussed and practical experiences
exchanged. As a result of this seminar and the
common interest, one customer need assessment
research project dealing more specifically with the
assessment of hidden and future needs was decided
to be started, utilizing as some of the starting
points the interview results and the detailed
problems found in the different companies. All
the companies and several of their functions were
willing to participate in this research project.
Self-reinforcing vicious loops of managerial
problems were found in every studied company.
The common factors appearing in the found loops
have been defined as important problems also in
many other NPD studies, for instance in the above
success factor studies. Since rather similar types of
loops with common factors were found in several
different companies, the companies being different
in size, field and type of business as well as in their
operations, we presume that such loops can be
found in a number of other companies, as well.
100 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
This remains, however, an important topic for
further research.
Even though the found vicious loops had
important similarities in the studied companies,
many of the factors affecting the common manage-
rial problems included in these loops were
different. In addition, the common problems
included in the loops, for instance the long
duration of product development, may have
a different significance for the success of
product development in different companies and
industries, and the type and strength of the
causalities between managerial problems may be
different.
Companies should try to evaluate whether they
might have similar types of vicious loops in their
product development, and how important effects
such loops might have on the success of product
development. On the basis of our experiences in
the studied companies and the comments of
several company representatives, the mere recog-
nition and description of managerial vicious loops
and the causalities of most important managerial
problems can help the different functions and
parties involved with product innovation to
understand each other and the standpoint of the
whole company better, and to clarify effective
means to solve the managerial problems, to affect
the vicious loops and to facilitate the success of
product development. The described kind of
causal maps and vicious loops may facilitate the
understanding of the complex causalities of
managerial problems and their interrelationships
also in other companies, even if the causalities
were not fully similar. On the basis of our
experience, it is very difficult to analyze complex,
inter-linked causal chains without systematic,
illustrative tools like causal maps. Other than the
studied companies can also usefully apply the
developed analysis approach to find out develop-
ment needs and means concerning their customer
need assessment and PIM activities.
On the basis of the results of this study, as well
as the related discussions and seminars with the
different studied companies, we have a reason to
believe that the type of vicious loops described in
the study can be important concerning the success
and outcome of product development, and they
may quite significantly affect the speed, costs and
quality of product development, even though the
significance of the found types of vicious loops
may be quite different in different companies.
Further studies should be carried out concerning
the existence of the described types of vicious
loops, their commonness and their significance for
product development in different types of compa-
nies. Effective ways to affect the vicious loops for
instance by means of customer need assessment
and more intense co-operation between the differ-
ent functions in the early product definition phases
should also be studied.
We analyzed the causes for one managerial
problem commonly found in the early product
definition phases and in the vicious loops of the
studied companies, the late changes in product
specifications, which caused extra work in product
development. The emphasized causes for the
changes seemed to somewhat vary depending on
the interviewed function, and the stated detailed
causes were different in the different companies.
Most of the clarified causes seemed to be closely
linked with inadequate co-operation between
company functions in the product definition
phases. Very commonly the specification changes
were caused or seriously affected by failure to
clarify or communicate sufficiently long-term
customer needs clearly to persons involved in the
definition process. Part of the causes were con-
cerned with company procedures and processes in
the product definition phase and the commitment
of the different parties involved, which were at
least partly connected to successful clarification
and communication of customer needs. The above
results suggest that carefully considered develop-
ment activities aimed at improving the clarifica-
tion, in-depth understanding and communication
of (longer-term) customer needs may be a quite
effective means to decrease the number and extent
of changes in product specifications, and in this
way to affect and decrease the effects of vicious
loops and important managerial problems, and to
improve the success and outcomes of product
development. This conclusion is also partly sup-
ported by our study based on the same company
interviews (Koivuniemi et al., 1999), which studied
the effects of different alternative development
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H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
means on the commonly important managerial
problems in the studied companies.
The developed analysis approach and its results
increased the mutual understanding of different
departments’ representatives taking part in pro-
duct innovation and enhanced their commitment
to the actual development projects started on the
basis of the results to facilitate product innovation
management. The representatives of different
departments started to realize more explicitly that
in addition to the operation of other departments,
the operation of their own department and their
own way of doing things might also cause or affect
PIM problems. Many of the causes for PIM
problems were related to co-operation between
product development, marketing, and business
management. For this reason, it is not possible
for product development alone to promote the
product innovation management and eliminate
critical PIM problems like long duration of
product development, but all the departments
and functions of the company must clarify how
they can affect the causes of problems and work
together to eliminate these factors. For instance,
marketing should aim to produce customer need
information for the definition of more permanent
product specifications, potentially involving repre-
sentatives of product development in the process,
and the product development should define, in co-
operation with marketing, which type of need
information would be most useful in determining
the specifications.
Generally, the results of this study help compa-
nies to see better the importance of careful
customer need assessment for the success of
product development and the whole company,
and provide a practical, illustrative way to explain
and if necessary, motivate its significance to other
persons and functions in the company. The
described research approach gives a practical
means to study the related managerial problems
in companies in a comprehensive, holistic way, and
to find out effective development needs concerning
their own customer need assessment and PIM
activities. When the links of customer need
assessment to various important managerial pro-
blems and self-reinforcing loops are properly
recognized, it will be easier to design effective
101
means to facilitate the development of new
products. Academically, the study increases the
comprehension of the managerial problems of
PIM and complements the earlier studies by
enhancing the understanding of the multi-func-
tional and company-wide view of the problems.
The results facilitate the understanding of the
Table 3
(I) Preparation
Planning of interview structure and questions
Meetings with R&D directors and other key persons
) Company background, present organization
) Persons to be interviewed
(II) Interviews
Personal structured interviews in different functions and
departments
Careful recording and documentation
Review of document correctness by interviewees
) Individual opinions about problems, their reasons and
consequences
(III) Company-level analysis
Review of personal interview documents
Frequency analysis
Causal analysis, creation of causal maps
) Most common company specific development needs
) Causes and effects of PIM problems in each studied
company
(IV) Company-specific group seminars
Seminars with all interviewed persons
Discussion and evaluation of company specific results
Voting of importance of development needs
) Company specific results validated by group of
interviewees
) Most important development needs of each studied
company
(V) Inter-company comparisons
Comparison of results of frequency and importance analysis
Comparison and further analysis of causal maps
Further reviews of individual company interviews when
needed
) Common problems and development needs of studied
companies (issues concerning PIM in general and customer
need assessment)
) Common causes and effects of problems or development
needs
) Common factors of vicious loops in studied companies
) Common and company specific causes for specification
changes of vicious loops
102 . ainen,
H. Karkk . K. Elfvengren / Int. J. Production Economics 80 (2002) 85–103
product innovation as a complex system affected
in various ways by the success of customer need
assessment. The study also facilitates the under-
standing of why customer need assessment is in
such an important position when improving the
product development process from the whole
company’s standpoint, and why it is a critical
success factor in the development of new products,
matters which are commonly pointed out in the
literature.
Appendix A
The main phases, essential tasks and outputs of
the developed research approach are as shown in
Table 3.
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