Relying on Experts: How to Effectively Gather Information for Innovation Projects from Market Specialists

The ability to successfully develop and market innovative new products is critical for corporate growth and sustainable competitive advantage. For innovations projects, firms need to collect, process, and filter a substantial amount of information: innovation management is therefore to a high degree information management. Particularly in the early phases of the innovation process, the so called “fuzzy front end,” firms need to develop an understanding of various topics: What are current and future customer needs? Which trends and technological developments are going to have an impact on the business? What might be promising avenues for new solutions? Information with regard to these questions is essential in the early phases of the innovation process since they provide hints for ideas and concepts that are both, customer and future focused (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997; Reinertsen, 1999). Due to the fact that most of this information is located externally rather than internally, secondary sources of information need to be screened intensively. Besides the internet, written documents and electronic databases, external experts appear to be a key source of information in the fuzzy front end. An expert is someone who can perform, in a specific domain, at a level that exceeds ordinary individuals (Lunce et al., 1993). The advantage of experts as information providers is twofold: Firs, experts can deliver state-of-the-art information about the field of interest.