Market Testing Procedures for B2C and B2B in Perspective of Radical Innovation

Literature Review

The main challenge with radical innovation is the lack of knowledge regarding innovation for both the firm and consumers. These innovations are not only new to the firms but also for the market. In that case the customer will not be able to express their requirements for such product that opens entirely new markets and applications (O’Connor, 1998).

For radical innovation, Von Hippel (1988) demonstrated that current market research analyses are not reliable as the perceptions for the radical products are controlled by the marketers and users own real-world experience. Also, considering the fact that most innovation projects in practice are incremental in nature, this may reflect sample biasness towards incremental innovation rather radical innovation (Talke and Hultink, 2010). Moreover, for radical innovations the traditional testing is not well suited and lead to wrong product introduction to wrong consumers at the wrong times. To support the statement Letti et al (2006) analyzed the uncertainty related to radical innovations (Breakthrough Products) and the incapability of conventional testing to cope. Finding the right consumer who will drive the radical innovation is a crucial factor for the success of radical innovation projects (Leifer, O’Connor and Rice, 2001). Even though, market testing helps answering the questions on recognizing potential customer, product functionality and the needed infrastructure to support the radical innovations (Deszca, Munro and Noori, 1999). In recent years, to somewhat cope with the situation related to radical innovation a considerable amount of literature has been developed on alternative approaches. This research will be strictly focused on the most popular and effective market testing procedures used for B2B and B2C. To fulfil the objective of reviewing the alternative approaches to develop the new procedure are given below: