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School of Industrial and Information Engineering

Master of Science in Management Engineering

Supervisor: Prof. Riccardo Mangiaracina

Co-supervisor: Maria Giuffrida

M.Sc. Thesis by:

Andrea Autelli

905140

Academic year 2019/2020

Analysis of the degree of digitalization of

the NPD process as a key factor for

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Nowadays, e-commerce represents an essential support for those companies that want to embark on new profitable ventures beyond national borders, but it is not sufficient to ensure the success. In fact, to seize the opportunity of entering new markets, organizations must also be able to develop the right product for a specific foreign target. To achieve this, it is essential to design a valuable NPD process that adopts, in each of its phases, the best-in-class working methodologies, which inevitably include the employment of digital technologies that are able to bring a much higher efficiency and effectiveness to companies’ operations. Hence, it can be concluded that a higher digitalization degree leads to a better NPD process, thus resulting in a higher capability of developing the right product, managing cross-border operations and, consequently, being successful in foreign markets. This paper fits into this context with the objective of proposing a framework that may be used by firms to examine their ways of working, spot the potential room for improvement and assess their likelihood of gaining success abroad. In order to build this model, two preliminary studies are needed. On the one hand, it is analyzed a reasonable sequence of stages composing the NPD process in an international context, describing the kind of activities and decisions that each of them requires. On the other hand, instead, it is presented a categorization of several existing technologies and an explanation of their functioning, complexity and specific phases of the NPD process that they can support.

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Table of contents

Abstract ... 3 Index of Figure ... 6 Index of Tables ... 7 Executive Summary ... 8 Introduction ... 8 Objectives ... 9 Results ... 10 Conclusions ... 19 1. Introduction ... 20 2. Objectives ... 23 3. Methodology ... 24 4. Results ... 26

4.1 The New Product Development Process ... 28

4.1.1 Foreign Market Analysis ... 29

4.1.2 Idea Generation ... 34

4.1.3 Concept Design & Prototyping ... 36

4.1.4 Production ... 40

4.1.5 Pricing ... 44

4.1.6 Commercialization ... 47

4.1.7 After Sale ... 51

4.2 The impact of digital technologies ... 53

4.2.1 Web 2.0 ... 59

4.2.2 Surveys/Interviews support tools ... 60

4.2.3 Big Data-related tools ... 62

4.2.4 Market Research support platforms ... 64

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4.2.6 Brainstorming tools ... 66

4.2.7 Product Design tools ... 68

4.2.8 Rapid Prototyping & Simulation tools ... 69

4.2.9 Platforms for Overall Management ... 70

4.2.10 Artificial Intelligence-related tools ... 72

4.2.11 Neuroscience-related tools ... 74

4.3 The “NPD Digital Journey” Framework ... 76

4.3.1 First Framework Proposal ... 77

4.3.1.1 Foreign Market Analysis practices ... 79

4.3.1.2 Idea Generation practices ... 80

4.3.1.3 Concept Design & Prototyping practices ... 82

4.3.1.4 Production practices ... 84

4.3.1.5 Pricing practices ... 85

4.3.1.6 Commercialization practices ... 87

4.3.1.7 After Sale practices ... 89

4.3.2 The Final Framework ... 91

4.3.3 Case studies ... 98 4.3.3.1 Interviews ... 99 4.3.3.2 Main findings ... 114 5. Conclusions ... 121 5.1 Further developments ... 123 6. References ... 125

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Index of Figure

Figure 1: Methodology adopted in the research ... 9

Figure 2: The final "NPD Digital Journey" Framework ... 16

Figure 3: Methodology adopted in the research ... 24

Figure 4: The New Product Development Process workflow ... 28

Figure 5: Information typologies (from Multichannel customer strategy course) ... 30

Figure 6: Features of the different design artifacts (reference to www.nesta.org) ... 37

Figure 7: Inventory-related costs ... 42

Figure 8: Pricing methodologies (from Multichannel customer strategy course.) ... 46

Figure 9: The first proposal of the "NPD Digital Journey" Framework ... 78

Figure 10: Complexity of the technologies employed during the Foreign Market Analysis ... 79

Figure 11: Complexity of the technologies employed during Idea generation ... 80

Figure 12: Complexity of the technologies employed during Concept des. & Prototyping .... 82

Figure 13: Complexity of the technologies employed during Production ... 84

Figure 14: Complexity of the technologies employed during Pricing ... 85

Figure 15: Complexity of the technologies employed during Commercialization ... 87

Figure 16: Complexity of the technologies employed during After sale ... 89

Figure 17: The final "NPD Digital Journey" Framework ... 97

Figure 18: Company A's positioning on the framework ... 101

Figure 19: Company B's positioning on the framework ... 104

Figure 20: Company C's positioning on the framework ... 106

Figure 21: Company D's positioning on the framework ... 109

Figure 22: Company E's positioning on the framework ... 111

Figure 23: Company F's positioning on the framework ... 113

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Index of Tables

Table 1: Primary Information Sources (from Multichannel customer strategy course) ... 32

Table 2: Different prototyping methodologies ... 39

Table 3: The different categories of digital technologies (Part 1) ... 55

Table 4: The different categories of digital technologies (Part 2) ... 56

Table 5: The involvement of digital technologies within the NPD process (Part 1) ... 57

Table 6: The involvement of digital technologies within the NPD process (Part 2) ... 58

Table 7: Description of the companies in the interviewed sample ... 98

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Executive Summary

Introduction

Today, the rapidly changing environment, and the fiercer competition that companies have to face, are reducing the time to market (Nunes et al., 2017), thus shifting the focus to the importance of a culture based on continuous improvement and innovation. To keep-up with competitors, it is essential to develop appropriate products, but also to seize all the opportunities that world is offering.

The profitability of a company is surely impacted by the extent to which its products match customers desires, but for a firm that aspires to be successful, this is not enough; in fact, another critical driver coincides with the number of disparate people that the company is able to serve (McDermott, 2015). In this context, it is important to raise the awareness of the brand and make products available, not only within national boundaries, but also beyond them.

Fortunately, e-commerce exists and rises as an enabler for those companies that want to consolidate their presence abroad and build profitable businesses; however, it must be remembered that, even if it could seem a quick and easy way to reach more consumers with less effort, it is not like that. Indeed, the easiness in entering a new market depends on the strictness of the existing constraints (McDermott, 2015; Osservatori Digital Innovation, 2018; Wang, 2014), and on the ability of the firm in developing something more than a simple “one fits all” strategy in each different addressed country (Hultman et al., 2009).

Finally, a further interesting opportunity is related to the wide number of digital technologies that may be employed by companies during daily activities. Basically, it can be said that the use of the most advanced technologies characterizes the best-in-class working methodologies so, a higher digitalization degree leads to a more effective NPD process and, consequently, to a higher level of readiness to exporting ventures, because it increases the likelihood of developing the right product and it facilitates the management of cross-border operations.

In a few words, a success-oriented approach consists in designing a structured NPD process, able to address both national and foreign countries, leveraging on e-commerce to open up to

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digital export, and employing as many digital technologies as possible to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the operations.

Objectives

The aim of this thesis is to create a valid framework that helps companies to evaluate, through the analysis of the approaches and technologies adopted in the NPD process, their level of readiness to exporting campaigns. To build this model, it was necessary to develop a preliminary study on the main sequence of stages a company goes through in the development of products, and on the different technologies that can be used to support the activities within it. Then, based on the previous analysis, it was necessary to evaluate the main working methodologies and sort them from the most traditional to the most digital and collaborative one. These points may be summarized in the following research questions:

RQ 1. What are the stages of a comprehensive, structured and effective NPD process in an

international context?

RQ 2. Which are the technologies that can be employed to support the activities within the

NPD process?

RQ 3. What are the different practices, seen as combinations of approaches and technologies,

that companies may adopt for each phase of the process?

Methodology

Figure 1 describes the main methodologies adopted to respond to the research questions

identified above. Literature Review Data analysis and processing Observatory’s workshop + Interviews RQ 1 RQ 2 RQ 3 RQ 3

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First of all, it has been performed a Literature review to browse existing contents from academic papers, internet articles and attended university courses. The three main investigated topics were cross-border e-commerce, product development process and digital technologies. After an attentive reading of the collected material and a reasoning on it, it was possible to come up with a well-defined sequence of stages composing the process in an international context, and a series of tools, organized in categories, that may be employed in each phase.

Then, the chapters elaborated for responding to RQ1 and RQ2 have been further analyzed and processed to identify those practices, i.e. combinations of approaches and technologies, that may be adopted by companies, and place them in the right position in the first version of the framework. Afterwards, thanks to the comments gathered during a workshop arranged by the Observatory of Digital Export, the model has been revised to obtain the final version of the framework, and a series of interviews have been performed to validate it with real use cases and collect some other interesting insights.

Results

This chapter is aimed at presenting the main results and deepenings made to carry out this Master thesis; the discussion is divided in three main sections, each corresponding to one of the research questions stated above: the new product development process, the impact of digital technologies and the “NPD Digital Journey” framework.

The New product development process

The goal of this section is to come up with a workflow that reflects as well as possible the succession of steps that companies usually employ to launch new products, or improved versions of the existing ones, on the market. Due to the inconsistency found in the examined papers (Bhuiyan, 2011; Grunert et al., 2011; Grützmann et al., 2019), some reflection was required to obtain a univocal solution from the multiple proposals highlighted in the literature. The following paragraphs report the process, with an explanation of the main decisions and aspects that have to be taken into consideration in each phase.

The starting point consists in performing an accurate foreign market research, geared to a dual purpose: on the one hand, the company has to define the main characteristics of the market, such as competition, local suppliers, customer spending in the sector, regulations and so on,

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while, on the other hand, it has to draw a comprehensive picture of the potential customer profile and of the main satisfied and unsatisfied needs. In doing so, the company should leverage on both secondary and primary sources of information1; the former (e.g. trade associations, governments, academic institutions...) are used more to analyze the characteristics of the market, while the latter (e.g. interviews, ethnographic studies, surveys...) are preferable in the identification of hidden needs.

Based on the output of the previous researches, the idea generation step can start; brainstorming sessions should be organized to collaboratively produce a high volume of ideas, eliminate the weakest ones and combine some of them to come up with a strong central proposal that will be the reference point for all the subsequent activities (Moskowitz et al., 2005). To increase the likelihood of getting successful results, three main factors should be considered: the sessions participants should follow precise rules, the people involved should have complementary skills, in order to generate the best synergy, and different ideation methodologies (Mind-mapping, brainwriting, Round robin..), to explore the problem from distinct points of view and unlock creativity, should be adopted (Herring et al., 2014).

Once a clear idea has been identified, it is time to develop concepts which consist in descriptive sketches providing a high-level explanation of how the final product will look like and what it will be able to do (Bordegoni et al., 2011). As for the idea generation, different concepts proposing distinct combinations of designs and functions are provided, then a single solution is selected and a prototype is created (Bosch et al., 2015), which is an artifact that evolves in time until it is ready to be produced on a large scale. Differently from concepts, the prototype provides a high-detailed technical design and a clearer explanation of the functionalities; the company can rely on physical prototypes that can be touched and handled or on virtual ones, and the functions could be tangible or simulated (Bordegoni et al., 2011). A critical success factor consists in involving experts and customers in testing sessions, gather feedbacks and adjust the solution time by time (Bhuiyan, 2011; Grützmann et al., 2019; Bosch et al., 2015). Following the chronological order, the production stage is the next one. The focus is not on production systems, manufacturing techniques or workplace layouts, but on the different choices that a company has to make to ensure that a product is available when a customer wants to buy it. The main drivers to consider for not losing sales opportunities are the ability to forecast demand, minimize inventory costs while maintaining a high service level, manage

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resources in order to have an optimal capacity planning and assess potential risky events to be prepared with actions to tackle them if they occur (Chaturvedi et al., 2016)1.

At this point, it is time to deal with pricing, which is one of the most crucial activities of the process (Hinterhuber et al., 2012). Two main considerations must be reminded: first, setting the lowest possible price is not always the winning choice because customers may be willing to pay more; then, price should never be static, but it should change over time depending on trends, degree of product maturity, customer fidelity and so on (Hinterhuber et al., 2012; Codini et al., 2012). Pricing decisions are influenced by several factors such as the general economic situation, cost structure, competition, laws/norms, product type, product lifecycle and customer segments. Different pricing methodologies exist, and they are subdivided in traditional (e.g. Mark-up, Target-return, Perceived value, Break-even... pricing) and innovative ones (e.g. Dynamic pricing, Group pricing, Auctions)2.

Commercialization is the next stage of the process, and it includes two main activities. On the one hand, there is the launch of the new product on the market, which is a very challenging activity that requires to undertake many decisions dealing with timing, actions to perform and strategy to adopt in each addressed market (Calantone et al., 2012). On the other hand, instead, a well-thought communication plan is needed to raise customer awareness about the product and link the brand to an image of superiority and distinctiveness with respect to competitors (Kingsnorth, 2016); the promotional campaign design, requires some prior steps related to the definition of the target that it is wanted to address, the analysis of competitors’ strategies, the generation of customer insights and the study of the customer journey, i.e. the series of steps a person goes through in engaging with the company1. All these investigations are essential to develop the right contents of the messages, select the right channels (e.g. Paid, owned, earned) and manage the relationship with customers.

Finally, the suggested process workflow ends with the after-sale stage, which consists in all those activities that should be performed after a customer has purchased a good. Each company should consider multiple topics of discussion: assistance, maintenance and repair, to give end-users the necessary support and flexibly solve problems as they arise (Szwejczewski et al., 2015), sales management, to leverage on the relationship that has been built with customers and boost sales (Kingsnorth, 2016), and feedbacks gathering to monitor positive and negative

1 Operations management course 2 Multichannel customer strategy course

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opinions about the product, which are essential to understand the necessary changes to obtain better goods and enhance customer satisfaction.

The impact of digital technologies

This sub-chapter reports a study of the multiple technologies, found during the literature review, that can be somehow employed in the NPD process defined above. In order to provide the reader a more understandable, systematic and neat overview of the existing technological solutions, it has been carried out a categorization of them which identified 11 groups; however, depending on the adopted criteria, different classifications may be obtained. In the paper, four important tables are reported: the first two (Table 3 and Table 4) provide a description and a list of providers/software for each technology while, the last two (Table 5 and Table 6) indicate the different steps in which a certain tool can be employed. Each of the following paragraphs briefly describes one of the defined categories.

Web 2.0 technologies: they allow whatever person with access to Internet to generate and edit

contents on online platforms. Social medias, blogs and discussion forums are the most common, followed by online product reviews, wikis and collaborative tagging (Grützmann et al., 2019). Companies can leverage on them to communicate with a broader base of customers, analyze market trends and needs, monitor brand reputation (even the one of competitors) and evaluate customers’ feedbacks.

Surveys/Interviews support tools: Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI), Web

Interviewing (CAWI) and Telephone Interviewing (CATI) are digital solutions that may support, respectively, face-to-face interviews, self-administered surveys and phone interviews (Fabbris, 2013). They are used to collect insights on what customers really desire, opinions on ideas, concepts or prototypes, and feedbacks on existing products from end-users.

Big Data-related analysis tools: this category includes those data science software/techniques

used to extract value from a wide database storing structured and unstructured information, in different formats, coming from disparate sources (e.g. Web 2.0, company’s sales record...). It has been made a distinction between data mining techniques that can be used for descriptive analytics only, and machine learning, which is more complex and can be also adopted for predictive, prescriptive analytics. These technologies can be employed every time the company wants to analyze a set of data and make well-informed decisions (Urbinati et al. 2020) during market analysis, pricing, commercialization and after sale.

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Market research support platforms: many free or paid online tools that may assist researchers

during the market analysis. Each of them has very different and specific purposes so, they have been divided in three main groups: tools that provide ready-made statistics about a great number of markets, systems that send alerts when new articles about a pre-selected topic are published, and platforms that enable to get insightful analyses about competitors1.

Marketing support platforms: this group contains tools to monitor how communication plans

are performing on social media, platforms that provide analyses on the search engines keywords that the company has decided to invest on, systems that evaluate the effectiveness of mailing strategies or offer marketing automation functions2, and tools for automatic price monitoring and dynamic pricing3.

Brainstorming tools: all those platforms that allow not only to store, manage and organize ideas,

but also to stimulate creativity and break mind-stopping problems. Collaborative and real-time tools are preferred because they enable multiple users to work on the same page, edit ideas, comment and vote them.

Product design tools: this paper distinguishes between simple CAD sketching tools (more used

for the generation of concepts) that do not allow to obtain precise designs because of their poor functionalities, and complex CAD modelling tools that enable designers to create 3D technical models and invite other people to cooperate in real-time4; basically, using these systems, a

skilled designer can conceive a lifelike prototype of whatever object. Moreover, there is also a mention about a hardware solution, i.e. graphic tablets that allow drafters to work with CAD software in a handier way using a particular stylus.

Rapid prototyping & simulation tools: this category includes those technologies that enable to

significantly cut costs and time during the prototyping stage; 3D printing allows to rapidly bring 3D digital models to life using cheap materials (e.g. PLA, nylon, resin..) (Rauch et al., 2016), virtual reality and augmented reality tools can be used to show and test product functionalities long before they have been actually developed, and digital human modelling tools enable to create animated manikins to simulate how the product is used and virtually assess important design concerns (e.g. ergonomics, safety...) (Deere, 2010).

1 www.toolrush.com 2 www.sproutsocial.com 3 www.octoparse.com 4 www.all3dp.com

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Platforms for overall management: this class groups those systems that, despite having specific

and distinct application fields, are all thought for a more effective and efficient management of firms’ operations. ERPs and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are designed to support the production stage (Rojko, 2017), Product Data Management (PDM) tools help companies to store technical drawings generated during the prototyping phase (Cunha et al., 2013), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software make information available to all the departments involved in the NPD process (Urbinati et al., 2020), CRM tools support the management of customer relationship and marketing campaigns (Kingsnorth 2016), and idea management platforms help to gather ideas from whoever inside and outside the company, store them and track how they are progressing1.

Artificial Intelligence-related tools: among the 8 main AI application classes2, only the ones

that can be employed in the NPD process have been considered: recommendation systems, image processing and autonomous robots that may be used in the commercialization stage, virtual assistants/chatbots that support people in the after sale and also during the online shopping activity, and intelligent objects that have been primarily mentioned to state the importance of sensors that gather data from the surrounding environment and communicate them to the company.

Neuroscience-related tools: this category includes those technologies that can be used to

analyze people reactions towards certain stimuli3, such as the display of a marketing content or

a prototype, the explanation of an idea and many others. Basically, thanks to these tools it is possible to gather unbiased and real information about whatever output that the firm wants to test. The most used solutions are electroencephalogram, hearth/breath rate monitoring and eye tracking systems.

The “NPD Digital Journey” Framework

The objective of this section is to create a framework that helps companies to evaluate their digital maturity in their working methodologies and assess their level of readiness to export. The different practices are sorted from the most traditional to the most digital and collaborative one, according to an increasing complexity of the technology employed and an increasing collaboration with customers or suppliers. Then, the first proposal of the framework has been

1 www.capterra.it

2 Artificial Intelligence Observatory (2019) 3 Multichannel customer strategy course

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revised, based on the comments arisen during the workshop, and a series of interviews has been performed to provide 6 real use cases. To report the discussion in a limited number of pages, this section starts directly by explaining the final version of the framework (Figure 2), then it presents the main findings detected through the interviews.

A company can perform market researches using a purely manual method to browse online or offline articles and look at user-generated contents (Web 2.0), or it can also leverage on support tools that provide ready-made statistics and new content notification services. A better practice consists in arranging in-depth interviews or focus groups, and create surveys to gather opinions directly from potential customers (CAPI, CAWI, CATI tools may be used in support), while the most advanced method implies the use of data science techniques, to extract value from a large amount of data and detect an empty spot for the company positioning.

A firm can set up in-house offline brainstorming sessions, where ideas are generated only by internal people, with or without the support of collaborative tools, such as real-time mind-mapping platforms, virtual whiteboards or unlocking creativity systems. Instead, the last two practices have been revised after the workshop: the former includes the employment of design thinking approaches, aimed at generating ideas, during brainstorming sessions, by integrating analytical and creative attitudes of external people who have disparate backgrounds; the last method, instead, consists in the adoption of platforms where customers can create their preferred products using the items that the firm makes available.

Offline internal brainstorming Use of simple CAD tools

and physical prototypes

Stand-alone production (no support systems)

Traditional models

Offline only

No customers’ feedbacks

Use of market research support tools Online/Offline

manual research Customers engagement

Use of machine learning & data mining Use of online collaborative

tools

Design thinking approaches

Use of platforms for product customization

(made by customers) Use of complex and

collaborative CAD tools Use of 3D printing

Use of simulation tools (e.g. VR/AR) T R A D IT IO N A L P R O C E S S D IG IT A L P R O C E S S

Use of ERP/MES systems Integration of IOT and ERP/MES systems

Collaborative models with suppliers (e.g.

vendor-managed inventory) Dynamic pricing Use of online tools for

automatic price monitoring Collaborative models with

customers (A/B testing)

Online only Online + offline Use of digital solutions in the physical retail store

Customers’ feedbacks gathered in a sporadic way

Customers’ feedbacks gathered in an active way

Customers’ feedbacks gathered with technology

FOREIGN MARKET ANALYSIS

IDEA GENERATION

CONCEPT DESIGN & PROTOTYPING

PRODUCTION

PRICING

COMMERCIALIZATION

AFTER SALE

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As regards the prototyping stage, simple CAD sketching tools can be used but, since they do not allow to obtain precise designs, the company can decide to develop costly physical prototypes. The use of complex CAD modelling tools enhances operations because they allow to generate technical 3D digital prototypes but, to quickly bring these models to life, thus creating a tangible artifact that can be touched and handled during the testing sessions, the firm has to employ the 3D printing technology. The shared drawback of the first three practices is that it is difficult to show and evaluate, in an effective and efficient way, the functionalities of the product; that is why the best practice includes the use of simulation tools (e.g. VR, AR...), that can be primarily employed to simulate how the final product is supposed to work.

Production-related information can be managed through paper or spreadsheet-based reporting or, to improve operations, a company can employ ERP systems and/or MES, that automatically plan resources and quantities to optimize costs and enhance coordination within the supply chain. Moreover, when these tools are integrated with IoT, a better practice is obtained, because smart objects or sensors, placed in the production plant, gather and communicate data in real-time, thus allowing a better productivity and well-informed decisions. Instead, the best practice coincides with the adoption of collaborative models with suppliers, such as the vendor-managed inventory one, that consists in leaving the control of the firm’s stock in suppliers’ hands. For the pricing decision, a company can adopt only traditional models (e.g. mark-up, perceived-value, going-rate pricing) or, as suggested during the workshop, it can collaborate with potential customers and conduct experiments (e.g. A/B testing) to evaluate the right price. For a better choice, a firm can use tools that automatically monitor competitors’ pricing strategies and send alerts when the latter change. However, the best method consists in employing systems for dynamic pricing, that flexibly adapt the price according to the user’s characteristics; basically, each buyer who browses an online store may see a different price.

A firm can decide to perform marketing campaigns only through offline channels (e.g. point-of-sale, print, television..) or only through online ones (e.g. social media ad, website ad, search engines..); the second option is preferable for three main reasons: it allows to reach a highly targeted audience, it never requires to be physically present in the addressed foreign market, and multiple tools exist to monitor the performance of online communication plans. However, a better method consists in adopting a multichannel approach, that coordinates marketing actions across both offline and online channels in a coherent way. The last practice, suggested during the workshop, includes the employment of digital solutions in the physical retail store;

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for instance, it is the case of virtual or augmented reality applications, smart objects (e.g. smart fitting room) or autonomous robots (e.g. Reply’s Pepper robot).

Among all the after sale-related activities, this paper examined only the feedbacks gathering one because, in terms of process, it is considered really important; in fact, customers’ opinions are essential to understand what has to be considered to create a new or improved product. A company can interrupt the relationship with buyers right after the sale has been made or can collect feedbacks from them; in this second case, the firm can decide to gather people feelings only sporadically or continuously to have always a clear view on the real perception about the good. Finally, the more advanced approach consists in using more complex technologies: data science can be employed to parse customers sentiments or analyze data coming from smart products, CRM tools can automatically send e-mails, one month after the purchase, asking customers to leave a review and so on.

Thanks to the interviews, it was possible to investigate the exporting experience of 6 real companies and figure out which approaches/technologies they actually employ in the NPD process. Despite the low sample size, the absence of companies only focused on the B2C market and the lack of non-exporting firms among the interviewed ones, many interesting insights arose. It has been discovered that the positioning that firms may have on the framework strictly depends on three main factors:

Addressed market (B2B or B2C): some practices that are usually followed in B2C contexts, are

not suitable for B2B ones, and vice versa. For instance, in B2B markets price monitoring and dynamic pricing methodologies cannot be applied, because companies always use traditional models to determine a starting price that is then negotiated with clients. Due to this reason, the positioning of the company along the pricing stage is influenced by the market.

Type of product: depending on the good that the company is selling, there can be proper

practices. For instance, in certain industries it does not make sense to invest in 3D printing or simulation tools, or it is not possible to build platforms where customers can ideate the product by themselves.

Size: a company, that has plants all around the world and great volumes of orders, inevitably

needs to use certain technologies. ERPs, for instance, have been defined by the respondents as indispensable as the firm grows in size. Furthermore, some of the tools that are placed on the extreme right of the framework require high investments, and probably small companies do not have enough capital.

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Moreover, pointed questions brought to the confirmation of two important aspects: on the one hand, respondents stated that e-commerce enabled companies to reach places where they would never have arrived, thus affirming the importance of it as a support to export-oriented initiatives; on the other hand, instead, the interviewees claimed that the employment of digital technologies within the NPD process leads to more effective and efficient operations, especially in an international context where each activity becomes even more complicated, thus confirming that a higher digitalization degree is essential to be successful beyond national borders.

Conclusions

The major consideration, that guided the discussion flow of the entire paper, was that a higher degree of digitalization of the NPD process corresponds to a higher level of readiness to export initiatives. The goal of this Master thesis was to translate this reflection into a framework that may be adopted by companies to examine their working methodologies and assess their level of preparation to a successful expansion beyond national borders. However, the proposed output is not only a useful instrument for those companies that want to understand whether they are ready for the first exporting venture, but also for those organizations that have been selling their products abroad for years because, by reading this paper, they may discover previously unknown technologies, further application fields for the tools that they are already employing and completely new approaches, that can enhance their operations within the NPD process. Future developments should be aimed at solving the main limitations that characterize this work. First of all, to analyze all the possible real scenarios, they should expand the sample of the interviewed firms, by engaging organizations that work in a pure B2C context and companies that do not export yet. Moreover, since the proposed framework do not take into account the addressed market, the type of product sold and the size of the firm, further developments should explore more in details these factors and adjust the model accordingly. Finally, it should be clear that, due to the speed at which technologies evolve, future works are inevitably needed to update the “NPD Digital Journey” framework on the basis of the latest technological breakthrough.

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1. Introduction

Nowadays, markets are becoming increasingly competitive and whatever firm, from the multinational to the SME, cannot stop thinking about new ways to address them. Refraining from the act to innovate and launch goods on the market is dangerous, because each delay in satisfying customers’ needs and propose something new will have a negative impact on business. Being successful is even more challenging than in the past, there is a rapidly changing environment, companies have less and less time and competition is fierce (Nunes et al., 2017); it is a fight against competitors, a run for the success, and if the objective is to keep-up with rivals and outperform them, the company needs to put itself in customers’ shoes, analyze needs and satisfy them with appropriate products (McDermott, 2015).

The culture of continuous improvement and innovation is a must-have, it is something necessary but, anyway, not sufficient; in fact, the profitability of a company does not only depend on its ability to produce exactly what customers desire but also on the number of different people that it is able to serve (McDermott, 2015); it is not just about reaching disparate consumers segments within national boundaries but also pushing products towards foreign lands; indeed, being an exporter enables firms to raise awareness of their brand globally and increase their incomes. However, any company should never forget that a product, suitable for its native country, does not necessarily work beyond the borders; so, existing goods should be adapted to foreign markets’ characteristics or, whenever this is not possible, new products should be developed (Hultman et al., 2009). The result of the entire reasoning is that an ambitious company, in its effort to win the competition, should consider two main critical success factors: on the one side, it should design and set up a structured and valid process to support the creation of new products and their improvement over time while, on the other one, it should consolidate its presence in overseas markets. Therefore, the first lesson that can be set aside suggests that, to empower company’s strength, it is needed to re-think the new product

development process (NPD) and orient it to both national and international campaigns.

The other fundamental aspect that deserves further investigation is the role of the digital sphere on daily life; indeed, this is having such an overflowing impact that makes it arduous to mention all the different applications of technologies. World is becoming an increasingly connected place, where people can communicate in real time with their friends living on the other side of

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the globe and look for whatever information. Moreover, narrowing down, if it is considered the perspective of customers that want to buy something, technology enables them to browse a wide range of product offerings, compare them and select the one that best fit to their needs; another little big detail is that these activities can be completely done from the comfort of their own home. In practice, not only it is reduced the distance between individuals across the globe but also the one between customers and organizations. So, it is right to consider that digitalization-related advantages do not only exist on people’s side, but also on company’s one where new opportunities for building profitable businesses are created (McDermott, 2015). One of these chances for greater success is exactly digital export. Also known as cross-border e-commerce, this expression effectively describes the activity of a company that serves customers residing beyond its national boundaries, by means of online channels such as e-commerce websites, online retailers and marketplaces (Giuffrida et al., 2017). Thanks to the increasing digitalization of trade and the diffusion of ICT technologies, e-commerce has become a mass phenomenon and an opportunity could be missed if it is not exploited for getting an international openness (Wen et al., 2019). However, being online is not enough, success requires countless efforts because, as already said, each country has its own characteristics and, to serve foreign customers, companies need something more than a simple “one-fits-all” strategy (Hultman et al., 2009); in fact, the easiness in entering an overseas market also depends on five macro constraints and on how much they are stringent: language, localization, laws/legislation, logistics and difference in currency (McDermott, 2015; Osservatori Digital Innovation, 2018; Wang, 2014). In conclusion, the second lesson that this paper provides is that e-commerce rises

as a vital support and enabler for companies that want to consolidate their presence abroad and gain higher profits, but a great focus and effort has to be devoted to this cause for catching all the advantages that it is able to bring.

The further aspect that drives the decision towards a market or another is the degree of country digitalization. Some regions do not own the resources required to exploit e-commerce opportunities, there can be a lack of access to internet connection and poor infrastructure supporting products delivery so, as a result, it is possible to conclude that the higher the digitalization degree of a country, the higher the possibility to benefit from the opportunities offered by e-commerce (Osservatori Digital Innovation, 2018). This factor is also an enabler for organizations but, on this side, the term “digitalization” assumes a quite different meaning: it indicates the degree of utilization of digital technologies during daily activities. Since the latter provide a great support to companies’ operations, it can be stated that a high employment

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of digital tools raises firms’ performances (Urbinati et al., 2020). Therefore, to finish up the discussion and move the focus to the object of this paper, the last lesson is that the exploitation

of different digital technologies within the product development process plays a very important role and increases the likelihood of producing a successful product.

Companies that aspire to overcome competitors and assert their power should recall, at the same time, the three main teachings identified above. Their combination generates the best approach that ambitious organizations should adopt to remain competitive, which consists in designing

an effective new product development (NPD) process to address both national and foreign customers, employing as many digital technologies as possible within it, and leveraging on the phenomenon of e-commerce to cross their national borders and open up to digital export.

This Master thesis wants to fit exactly into this scenario and describe the impact of technologies on the NPD process, in an international context. Basically, the consideration that this work is based on is that the use of the most advanced technologies characterizes the best-in-class working practices so, a higher digitalization degree brings to a more effective NPD process and, consequently, to a higher level of readiness to exporting ventures, because it increases the likelihood of developing the right product and it facilitates the management of cross-border operations. Therefore, the final result of the work will be a framework that may be used by companies to evaluate the maturity of their working methodologies and figure out their level of readiness to export initiatives. In practice, through it, organizations can analyze their present situation, spot the gaps that prevent them from venturing into foreign potentially profitable campaigns, and perform actions to reduce them.

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2. Objectives

This Master thesis wants to create a framework which helps companies putting on trial their NPD process, analyzing whether it is traditionally or digitally managed and, as final goal, assessing their level of readiness to cross-border trade. Therefore, this purpose may be translated in two main sub-objectives. On the one side, this paper aims at providing a complete description of a reasonable sequence of stages composing the product development process, in an international context, and a comprehensive picture of the various technologies that may be employed, within it, to support operations. On the other side, instead, it wants to establish, for each of the phases, four different practices that companies may adopt, ordered in ascending way according to a digitalization and a collaboration logic; in a few words, the aim is to evaluate the disparate firms’ working methodologies and list them from the most traditional to the most digital and collaborative one. For the sake of clearness, these points may be summarized in the following research questions:

RQ 1. What are the stages of a comprehensive, structured and effective NPD process in an

international context?

RQ 2. Which are the technologies that can be employed to support the activities within the

NPD process?

RQ 3. What are the different practices, seen as combinations of approaches and technologies,

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3. Methodology

Figure 3 displays the chronological sequence of steps followed to carry out this thesis work and

achieve the objectives summarized in the four research questions identified above.

It all started with a Literature review and, in particular, with the search of academic papers dealing with three main topics: cross-border e-commerce, to build an as comprehensive as possible knowledge base about the subject, new product development process, to understand which are the main phases characterizing it, and digital technologies, to analyze the existing tools that can support companies’ operations. At the beginning of the Literature review, efforts were destined to the search of papers treating all these themes together, but it has been discovered that no documents exist with this characteristic. Moreover, it was difficult to find reports tightly related to the analysis that this dissertation was interested in, and some contents, especially in the definition of a common NPD process, were inconsistent with each other. Therefore, to answer to RQ 1 and RQ 2, it was necessary to cross the information found in the academic papers with the one coming from attended university courses and internet websites, and take some reasoned decisions on the path that this thesis had to undertake.

Once the stages of the NPD process have been defined and fixed, and an overview of the multiple technologies and their application fields have been depicted, it was time to respond to

RQ 3. In doing so, two main activities have been performed: on the one hand, an analysis and

processing of the previously gathered and re-elaborated data (i.e. the written study about NPD process and tools) has been carried out, to understand which practices, seen as combinations of approaches and technologies, firms may adopt in each phase, and create a hypothetical framework that sorted them from the most traditional to the most digital and collaborative one. On the other hand, thanks to a workshop organized by the Observatory of Digital Export of the

Figure 3: Methodology adopted in the research

Literature Review Data analysis and processing Observatory’s workshop + Interviews RQ 1 RQ 2 RQ 3 RQ 3

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Politecnico di Milano, it was possible to collect comments and suggestions from many firms and refine the hypothesized model to obtain the final more realistic version of the framework. Finally, before drawing up the conclusions of the work, a series of interviews has been done to gather real use cases, validate the proposed final model and collect insights highlighting further interesting aspects and practices employed by companies in developing products.

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4. Results

This chapter constitute the central part and the bulk of this Master thesis, where each of the sub-chapters corresponds to the answer to one of the research questions highlighted above. The methodology used to accomplish this work has just been specified so, this introduction aims at summarizing, more specifically, the three sections that the reader is going to browse.

It begins with a study of the main phases a company goes through in the development of new products or improved versions of the existing ones. Basically, the process starts with an analysis of the market and its major or hidden needs and ends with the distribution to customers of a developed and tested product, and the performance of after-sale related activities. It should be clarified that, even if it could seem that the best product development process is a well-defined sequence of steps, the literature does not confirm this feeling, because the examined papers provide, each one, different information (Bhuiyan, 2011; Grunert et al., 2011; Grützmann et al., 2019); due to this inconsistency, some reasoning was required to define an as complete and logical as possible succession of phases. Then, leaving technology aside, each stage is individually analyzed to describe the various aspects that should be considered.

The second sub-chapter reports a study of all those technologies that can be somehow employed in the previously defined product development process. In order to draw a more understandable overview of the main tools available on the market, and help the reader follow the discussion, this paper tries to propose a categorization of the analyzed technologies; before separately describing each tool and clarify what it does, what it is used for and how it supports some steps of the process, four important summary tables are introduced: the first two (Table 3 and Table

4) show the distinct groups of technologies and, for each single tool, they present a brief

description and a list of providers or software; the last two (Table 5 and Table 6), instead, report all the technologies on the rows and the stages of the process on the columns, to indicate in which steps a certain tool can be used.

Then, giving a look at the overall information generated in the earlier sub-chapters, it is created the first proposal of the output of this dissertation, i.e. the so-called “NPD Digital Journey” Framework. In practice, for each stage of the process, it is dedicated an individual section that contains an initial figure depicting the kind of technologies used in that step, sorted in ascending order according to complexity, and the description of each of the four main practices that

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constitute the framework. After this explanation, the paper narrates the workshop experience with the objective of showing how the comments, gathered during the meeting, have been processed, and which reasons have driven to the decision of changing some practices or maintaining them as they were; then, the final revised version of the “NPD Digital Journey” Framework is used to gather the thoughts and experiences of those companies’ managers who accepted to be interviewed. To better describe each meeting, this paper devotes a separate section to each company, structured as follows: there is an initial portrayal of the firm, indicating what it sells, which countries it reaches and the kind of channels that it uses to export, then, for each of the stages of the NPD process, it reports the practices adopted. Finally, it is represented the positioning of the organization on the framework and the areas of improvements identified by the respondents. At the end, a further section is dedicated to the summary of the main findings that highlights other interesting aspects about the output of this Master thesis.

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4.1 The New Product Development Process

Before starting with the explanation of the major findings on the NPD process, it should be recalled that having a structured and effective approach, addressing both national and foreign customers, is the first fundamental driver that impacts on companies’ profitability. Therefore, this section wants to come up with a workflow able to reflect as well as possible the real methodology employed by companies to launch new goods on the market.

From the literature, it resulted a lack of agreement on the stages composing the product development process; in fact, authors see in it a variety of nuances that prevents to clearly identify a univocal solution. So, the final proposal is obtained by fixing the common steps identified in multiple papers alongside the other plausible ones according to reasoning and reflection.

The result is the flow in Figure 4 that starts with the analysis of the foreign market, and its customers, to figure out which is the most suitable country to address and the kind of positioning strategy that the company should adopt (Bhuiyan, 2011); then, the process continues with the generation of ideas and the design of concepts and prototypes (Grunert et al., 2011; Grützmann et al., 2019) until the firm finds, also through expert and end-users testing sessions (Bhuiyan, 2011, Grützmann et al., 2019, Bosch et al., 2015; Moskowitz et al., 2005; Kankainen, 2003) a valid product that is eligible to be launched on the market. Then, it is time for production to scale the product and build a good base to satisfy future interested customers but, concurrently with this activity, the company has to determine the right price and increase foreign customers’ awareness of firm’s brand and product itself, through marketing campaigns (Grützmann et al., 2019). Finally, the process does not end when the good is sold on the market, but the company should gather feedbacks and perform activities related to after sale support (Grützmann et al., 2019; Szwejczewski et al., 2015). Even if the last four steps are represented as sequential, it should be taken into consideration that it can happen to go back and perform some activities again. To give examples, the chosen price does not remain fixed forever, but it can change dynamically over time, or the quantity that has to be produced depends on demand and, consequently, on how the firm is skilled in promoting its product.

FOREIGN MARKET

ANALYSIS IDEA GENERATION COMMERCIALIZATION CONCEPT DESIGN

& PROTOTYPING PRODUCTION PRICING AFTER SALE

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4.1.1

Foreign Market Analysis

Each product development process starts with an accurate market analysis which will be the basis for the subsequent reasoning about the product, its characteristics and how to make the general public aware of it (Bhuiyan, 2011). In the context of this paper and according to its objective, it is taken the perspective of a company that wants to embark on new ventures in abroad waters; that is why this first step is defined as foreign market analysis. Obviously, this specification does not bring a significant variation to the classical investigation mechanism, but the commitment and efforts required to get the job done are surely greater because a number of further factors, that in a national market would be already known, should be examined. For instance, if it is considered an interview with a consumer, it can be said that reaching a person living in a foreign country is much more difficult than engaging a conversation with a next door neighbor because there can be problems related to distance, communication (in terms of means to use for talking with him/her), language, finding the right subjects to contact and so on. Every market has its own characteristics, a product can be a bestseller in a country while having some troubles in others (Hultman et al., 2009); for this reason, having the capability to use valid tools and approaches for generating comprehensive and precise market researches is crucial (Bhuiyan, 2011): being a nice analyst is the first driver that makes the difference between success and failure. It is not only possible to understand what features should be embedded into the future marketable product, but also which is the market that requires less efforts to be addressed. In a few words, the general allowance, brought by well-performed researches, is that companies can comprehend how and where they can reduce the likelihood of failure and get better profits. For a traditional non-exporter firm, being successful in a foreign market is even more challenging so, converging the investments in a well-thought campaign is critical. A market research provides useful information about the market situation and helps companies to make customer-oriented decisions without losing sight of the final addressee of the product. The first step, in performing a market analysis, consists in setting the goal of the research1 to avoid leaving space for misunderstanding. In fact, analyses are conceived to be a support, not a brake, to the attempt of organizations to increase their attractiveness and competitiveness so, converging people’s work on common objectives is fundamental. Therefore, the primary question that a company should tackle is: what do I want to figure out through this market

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research? On the one hand, the firm wants to define the characteristics of the foreign market (e.g. competition, local suppliers, investments, customer spending, constraints, regulations, strengths and weaknesses, customs, traditions..) while, on the other hand, it aims at profiling potential customers and extracting valid needs (e.g. carry out a big picture of satisfied and unsatisfied needs, segment customers, generate personas, highlight hidden wishes, frustrations, preferences..).

Once the organization has set the market research goals, it should develop a plan to gather

information efficiently1. Setting up high-quality databases is an important driver for success

(Markham, 2015), because to make well-informed decisions, more trustful data are clearly preferable to unreliable one. Two different kinds of information exist2:

• Primary information: the accountable for gathering it is the company itself, which could also decide to outsource this activity to a third party. The nature of this research could be exploratory or specific; the former is less structured, and consists more on open-ended questions that are asked to understand the type of issues that the company has to face; then, once there is clearness on the topics to deepen, a specific research should be performed to explore all the different aspects more deeply.

• Secondary information: it consists in data already present and collected in the past by the company itself or third parties. A distinction is made between internal secondary information coming from the firm’s information system (e.g. characteristics of customers, number of sales, number of defective goods…) and external secondary sources such as external market studies or publications.

1 www.thebusinessplanshop.com 2 Multichannel customer strategy course

Internal Secondary Information External Secondary Information Primary Information

Complexity in finding information

Q u al it y o f th e in fo rm at io n High High

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The two-dimensional chart, reported in Figure 5, plots the different typologies of information according to quality that depends on accuracy, reliability, completeness and appropriateness of data and complexity that is impacted by the cost faced to get information, the specificity of the desired research topic or the amount of effort that has to be devoted to the cause.

Figure 5 shows that primary information is the most qualitative one; in fact, by relying on this

source, the company can get highly targeted data, by investigating exactly what it desires and by asking specific questions to the right target (Mittal, 2017); however, bringing together people to perform focus groups or making interviews with several target customers (primary information methods) is surely much more challenging than taking ready-made market studies prepared by external parties..

As regards the specific kinds of secondary information sources that can be browsed, firms can rely on trade associations, that provide a central information source for companies working in the same industry, governments sources, that help firms to have a clear understanding of the current market situation, trade publications, which include offline and online magazines, journals, newspapers and so on, academic institutions, that publish scientific researches accessible to whatever user and third party sources, i.e. companies whose business depends on carrying out market researches on behalf of contractors. This secondary information is helpful to discover which kind of market is suitable for the first expansion because it is able to clarify the characteristics of a foreign country and, in particular, the trend related to the industry the company belongs to. Through secondary information, the researcher can get an idea on which is the most suitable market for the first expansion, because it clarifies the characteristics of the foreign country and, in particular, the trend related to the industry the company belongs to. On the other side, companies cannot spare primary information sources that are fundamental to build a competitive advantage. Indeed, the so-called Voice of the Customer (VoC) methods, which are those techniques used to collect primary information, are crucial for analyzing the market and understanding customers’ hidden needs, thus centering the entire innovation process on the end-user (Bhuiyan, 2011; Kankainen, 2003); the decisions that are taken in the earlier stages of the NPD process are the most important ones, and if they are supported by the market, i.e. they are based on customers’ opinions and thoughts, the probability of producing a successful product is higher (Grunert et al., 2011). Table 1 provides an overview of the existing primary data gathering, or VoC methods, to introduce the reader to the discussion and help in

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understanding the high-level differences between them1. The approaches are categorized in

distinct groups according to two dimensions: on the columns, the nature of the information extracted is considered (i.e. quantitative vs qualitative) while, on the rows, it is specified whether the methods require the design of questions or simply rely on observation.

• Focus groups: the research team selects people belonging to the target demographic and bring them together in a room to discuss about topics and questions that have been pre-defined by the company (Guest et al., 2017). The number of participants should vary between 8 and 12 people and there is a moderator who submits themes, conduct the debate in an informal way to stimulate participants and take care of the discussion to let it flow smoothly. There is not a one-way interaction as for classical interviews, but the coordinator hopes for the activation of relational dynamics that can, in turn, give rise to a spontaneous and interactive debate.

• In-depth interviews: one-to-one discussions where a member of the research team sits down with the interviewees, tries to establish a trustful and positive relationship with them and explore their perspective on particular ideas, events or situation. They are useful when obtaining detailed information about people’s thoughts, desires or actions, is the purpose of the analysis (Guest et al. 2017). Questions should be carefully designed in advance and are in an open-ended format to allow the firm exploring given topics more deeply and avoiding only poor “yes” or “no” answers, which can be collected more correctly with surveys. Moreover, through in-depth interviews the problem of people having difficulties in talking openly in a group can be solved.

• Surveys: quantitative methods consisting of a set of mostly closed-ended questions formulated by the research team that can be submitted to a large audience. Thanks to their

1 Multichannel customer strategy course

Qualitative Quantitative Based on

questioning

Focus Groups

In-depth Interviews

Surveys Based on

observation

Ethnographic studies

Experiments

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standard structure, data gathering and processing phases are facilitated with respect to qualitative methods (Mittal, 2017). The flow of questionnaires is fundamental: screening questions to identify the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent, warm-up questions where the answer is simple, a central bulk of more complex requests that reflect what the research team really wants to discover and, finally, a close-up.

• Ethnographic studies: instead of listening to what people say during an interview, this method aims at observing human beings in their daily life to discover how do they behave. These analyses could result in powerful insights because behaviors are much more realistic than simple answers to questions, and can generate more accurate and objective results. • Experiments: these researches aim at observing customers’ reactions to different stimuli.

Firms rely on them to understand the causal relationship between a dependent, and more independent variables which are manipulated to study their impact on the first one.

In conclusion, the best practice that guides a company to success consists in combining both the information typologies. Secondary ones help the firm figure out market characteristics and understand the most suitable foreign country to address (macro-environment); then, primary sources allow mostly to investigate the deepest dreams and frustrations of end users, extract valid needs or test the already identified ones (micro-environment).

Starting from the collected information, a data analysis1 is performed to achieve the objectives defined during the market research planning, thus answering to several points as, for example: Are there strong barriers to entry? How is the market concentration? Who are the competitors? How powerful are they? Who are the local suppliers that can support the business? Are there local laws that should be taken into consideration? Which are the different market segments? Which are the characteristics and needs of the target customer?

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4.1.2

Idea Generation

Once it has been identified a suitable market for the foreign expansion, companies go through the idea generation stage, that consists in looking at the market characteristics and customers’ needs, highlighted during the initial analysis, and coming up with a strong idea that can be translated into a successful marketable product. It should be remembered that not all the ideas have the same quality and power to become innovations so, adopting an effective approach to idea generation is crucial (Girotra et al., 2010). This paper focuses on the process of brainstorming, which consists in producing creative ideas and solutions through intensive and freewheeling group discussion1, and on the main techniques that may be employed to get a powerful output. Basically, organizations set up brainstorming sessions where participants, preferably people with disparate skills and backgrounds, are encouraged to think aloud and suggest whatever comes to mind. In fact, the goal of these meetings is not the definition of the perfect idea, but the generation of a great volume of ideas; then, at the end of the last brainstorming session, the team collaboratively revises all the propositions, eliminates the weakest ones and combines some of them to come up with a strong central proposal, which all the following activities will be based on(Moskowitz et al., 2005). A crucial factor consists in ensuring to get together creative change-oriented people, who are passionate or have a good knowledge about the considered topic (Moskowitz et al., 2005).

To conduct a productive brainstorming session, and obtain the desired outcome, the following rules should be always obeyed by the participants2:

1. Defer judgement: it does not matter if something unattainable is proposed, people should be free in making propositions, and judgement should be postponed to the end of the session;

2. Big numbers: the quantity of ideas is the primary goal of brainstorming;

3. Build on the ideas of others: making thoughts on others’ ideas and enrich them;

4. Encourage wild ideas: it is fundamental to act as if everything was possible; this out-of-the-box thinking could lead to interesting cues;

5. Stay focused: the scope of the session must always be clear, considering out-of-scope topics is a loss of time;

1 www.businessdictionary.com 2 www.sharkandminnow.com

Figura

Figure 2: The final "NPD Digital Journey" Framework
Figure 3 displays the chronological sequence of steps followed to carry out this thesis work and  achieve the objectives summarized in the four research questions identified above
Figure 5: Information typologies (from Multichannel customer strategy course)
Table 1: Primary Information Sources (from Multichannel customer strategy course)
+7

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