Improved Market-Creation R&D Management through Researcher-Consultant Collaboration

An investigation based on 16 actual cases showed that the use of intermediaries with a good understanding of customers can improve communication between researchers and customers, thereby leading to the creation of new market concepts. The use of such consultants can overcome the problem of direct communication between researchers and customers due to the differences in the languages they use. It also showed that researchers who receive more input from consultants are more successful in developing technologies that solve customer problems and that researchers who understand the essential value of a technology are more likely to apply it to other business areas