Co-criação com lead users: estudo de casos no segmento de tecnologia da informação

Abstract

The integration of consumers in the product development process is one of the practices that companies have sought in order to achieve innovation with a higher degree of efficiency. However, work on this aspect show that it is necessary to find the appropriate user, thus making this identification of the most delicate stages of the partnership company / client. The wrong choice can result in failure of the co-creative project. Therefore, the Theory Lead User - which underlies this work - points this user in particular as ideal for co-creation. To them, two main features are closely linked-: face new market needs, ahead of his time, which will become common trends for customers in the near future; they strongly benefit from the innovations which provide solutions, making it a motivation to work in product development companies. The objective of this research is to propose a procedure for the identification of the leading users. For this, we used the theoretical research a systematic literature review on cocreation with users and field research, the method used was the case study, with companies in the sector of Information Technology, with the procedure conducting interviews semi-structured interviews with the directors, sales agents and their lead users. The results indicate that some companies use their own criteria to select users; These criteria, after analyzed by the conceptual model, the basis for the proposal. The procedure involves three steps, made by introducing the term lead user and the indication by the sales team of users with this profile, procedure of application (flow chart and interviews) and analysis, to see if the lead user is fit for purpose designated by the company.