Rethinking the Obvious: Two Cases on How Ethnographic Research Enhances New Product Development in the Context of B2B and B2C Customer Integration

The present article addresses how ethnographic research tools can (1) support customer integration into new product development and (2) foster the identification of latent needs in order to develop new ideas in technology oriented businesses. It is widely acknowledged that users are important actors in innovation projects. Going beyond traditional market research and integrating the customer directly into the innovation process is suggested to be an important measure for market-oriented innovation management. In particular this paper reports on research in the context of innovation management, especially using ethnographic approaches. The cases presented will illustrate the realization of ethnographic approaches in the business to business market. Within innovation market research at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories cross-functional teams engage in such studies. Within this case, observers followed heavy users for mobile email in business context. They documented their usual workweek and their user behavior with mobile email applications in order to understand usage habits as well as usage barriers. The article will provide a praxis oriented overview on the application of ethnographic research as tool of customer integration in innovation management of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories and the adaptation of new methodological approaches according to specific research settings.