Gewinnung neuer Produktideen durch Anregung von Lieferanten

Abstract
The number of new product introductions in the consumer goods industry has risen
from 20.000 in 1995 up to 30.000 introductions per year today. Nevertheless, 70 % of
these new products fail in the market. One of the reasons is an insufficient innovation
degree, which is needed to differentiate between the solutions already existing in the
market. To meet the manufacturer’s growth expectations, companies need a high quantity
of new and successful products. Studies show that the obvious solution, an enhancement
of the R&D budget, often is of no avail.
While dealing with globalization and focusing on value chains with the highest rates of
return, companies have lost critical competencies, now mostly owned by suppliers. New
expertise, needed for the development of innovative trend products, is also increasingly
external. One approach to improve the innovation rate is therefore to open innovation
activities to external innovation sources. Examples of e. g. Beiersdorf, Henkel and
Nestlé show how new successful products were launched with external sources of innovation,
either by the systematic integration of suppliers or by the coincidental match of
an internal problem and an external answer at the right place and time.
In this dissertation, 35 case studies of 12 manufacturers of branded goods have been
analyzed, where the ideas for new products where identified and implemented in cooperation
with suppliers. Communication between the partners has been made out to be a
significant element for initializing such a cooperation, whereby four approaches could
be specified: The search for specific solutions, the search for quick wins, the search for
ideas in general and the integration of side effects. The successful implementation of
these approaches to increase the quantity and heighten the quality of the identified ideas
depends on various influencing factors, such as the abilities and properties of the manufacturer
as well as the characteristics of the product.
The approach and explanatory model developed in this thesis can be used by manufactures
of branded goods to systematically stimulate suppliers to gain new product ideas.
Also, the work indicates the development of necessary abilities regarding the characteristics
of the product as well as of the company. The validity of these results, developed
upon the basis of the qualitative approach of research implemented in this paper, requires
further investigation.