Clockspeed effectiveness of lead users and product experts

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of collaboration with lead users (users that experience needs unknown to the public and therefore can innovate by finding solutions to those needs) and product experts (external new product development collaborators who have a commercial interest in the development of a new product) on the clockspeed of the development of new products and to determine which of the two has a higher impact. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from 421 European manufacturers, and analysed using hierarchical regression analyses. Findings – Both lead users and product experts were found to have a positive and statistically significant impact on new product development speed. Also, collaboration with lead users will lead to greater new product development speed than with product experts. Research limitations/implications – When knowledgeable individuals are involved in the new product development process as lead users, they have a better impact on new product development speed than when they are involved as product experts. This is a single informant study that makes use of perceptual measures. Although several steps have been taken to minimise any risk of systematic bias, its potential effect cannot be eliminated. Practical implications – The results have two main implications for manufacturers. First, collaboration with lead users and product experts during the new product development process will help to improve the speed of development, and hence the speed to market. Second, collaboration with lead users will have a greater impact, particularly when undertaken informally, as formal integration may lead to a weakening of lead users' innovative abilities. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the growing literature, which explores how innovators found outside an organisation can be used to enhance the innovative ability of that organisation. The value of this work is that it identifies and empirically compares the impact of lead users and product experts on new product development speed.