Development of a customer-centric structure research roadmap

Abstract

The Hallmark of modern marketplace is globalised supply chain, increasing demands and expectations from customers and high rate of technology discovery. As a result, maintaining competitiveness is challenging for technology companies. Increased investments in Research and Development (R&D) activities have been widely adopted as the solution. Despite the huge investments, several R&D organizations have not succeeded in overcoming this new market forces. Some companies are starting to question the returns on R&D investments. If R&D organization is to remain relevant in the 21st century marketplace, it must re-invent itself. Traditional technology-push mindset must be abandoned, and a customer value creation mindset should be adopted.

This work was commissioned by the R&D organization of the case company to facilitate the shift to customer-centric research process. The objective was to develop a customer-centric research roadmap for the structure research area. Theoretical aspect involved study of literature works on customer centricity, value creation and technology roadmapping. Afterwards, a novel framework for research roadmap development was developed. The empirical part of the study aimed to acquire a clear picture of the readiness of the case-company to adopt a customer-centric mindset and to gather customer values that will be inputs to the theoretical framework. Primary data collected from internal stakeholders was triangulated with secondary data from other studies conducted by the company.

Despite strong support towards a customer centric way of working, results from the empirical studies suggest inadequate coordination and communication among different organization with regards how customer needs and feedbacks are managed. As a result, a unified and coherent list of customer values could not be established. Nevertheless, three customer values were selected from the empirical studies and utilized as input to the theoretical framework to develop a structure research roadmap for the next 5 years. The framework can be used to develop roadmaps for other research areas in the organization.

In conclusion, the R&D organization is encouraged to promote and facilitate the adoption of the developed research roadmap to other research areas and also ensure efficient cooperation and communication among the different organizations with regards customer data and value creation.