Browsing by Author "Seiler, Matthias"

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    Countering commoditization through innovation: challenges for European B2B companies
    (Taylor and Francis, 2021-06-30) Goffin, Keith; Beznosov, Aleksei; Seiler, Matthias
    Overview: B2B companies are an important part of the global economy, and traditionally they have relied on technological capabilities to compete. Currently, the B2B sector is under increasing pressure, as many B2B companies no longer have a technological advantage, and they also face commoditization. Companies see innovation as a way to compete against these challenges. Although product and process innovation are important in B2B markets, companies need other forms of innovation such as service and business model innovation to create a differentiated offering. B2B managers’ views on the value of market research vary widely, and many are unaware that sophisticated techniques such as ethnography can effectively identify B2B customer needs. Our Commoditization-Innovativeness Matrix is a diagnosis tool that enables B2B companies to identify actions that can counter commoditization.
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    How COVID-19 impacted the tacit knowledge and social interaction of global NPD project teams
    (Taylor & Francis, 2022-02-18) Cecchi, Michele Angelo; Grant, Stuart; Seiler, Matthias; Turner, Neil; Adams, Richard; Goffin, Keith
    Multinational, technology-intensive companies routinely use globally distributed R&D teams, but COVID-19 represented an additional challenge. Lockdowns and home-office working severely limit human interaction and can impact the communication, social interaction, and knowledge sharing critical to successful R&D. Our study investigated how COVID-19 affected R&D processes at three global companies, using a project complexity perspective. Although R&D managers responsible for global projects are accustomed to the challenges of managing communications, the fact that teams were forced into home-office working made new product development more difficult in several ways. Ensuring that technical details are understood by all members of dispersed teams is crucial. Of particular note, and central to our findings, is the emphasis that R&D managers placed on maintaining a high level of social interaction in their teams, and special efforts were needed to keep interactions at a sufficient level to foster the generation and transfer of tacit knowledge. The findings have strong implications for the way that R&D project management is likely to be conducted in a post-COVID-19 world, and we demonstrate how the complexity framework we used can benefit managers in navigating this and other challenges.