Collaborative New Product Development and the Supplier/Client Relationship: Cases from the Furniture Industry

Open Innovation Dynamics of Furniture Design and Function: The Difference between IKEA and Nitori

“…New ideation methods including open innovation in furniture industry include two different points of accesses. The first open innovation access includes partners and venders, soliciting from the external scientific or technical community, scanning small business and business start-ups, inviting external finished product designs, external submission of ideas and external idea contests (Reis-Silva & Carrizo-Moreira, 2018). The second is known as the 'voice-of-customers', and includes ethnographic research, customer visit teams, customer focus groups for problem detection, lead user analysis, customer or user designs, customer brainstorming, customer advisory boards or panels and a community of enthusiasts (Cooper & Edgett, 2008).…”

“…Several similar examples of SMEs can be found by identifying digital transformation paths in the SME business model (Priyono et al, 2020). In fact, most furniture firms encourage supplier involvement in the collaborative new product development process (Reis-Silva & Carrizo-Moreira, 2018). As a low-tech, labour-intensive and supplier-dominated industry, the wooden furniture industry's pattern of innovation is widely acknowledged as business-driven and characterised by the collective innovation of suppliers, customers, competitors and retailers (Ng & Thiruchelvam, 2012).…”