Need Assessment in Practice –Methods, Experiences and Trends

The intensive concern with customer needs and problems is one of the key contributors to the success of innovation management. During the seventies, numerous procedures were devel-oped, in theory as well as in practice. These procedures entered literature as so called “need-assessment“ approaches (see e. g. Holt, Geschka, Peterlongo 1984). However, the application of these procedures to different industrial sectors and types of firms as well as the benefit achieved for innovation in practice, remained unexplored to a great extent till the nineties, except for a few documented experiences and case studies (see e. g. Herstatt 1998). Geschka and Herstatt carried out the first empirical study in Switzerland in 1990/91. This study was confined to the Swiss mechanical industry and the results were published in “Die Unterneh-mung” 3/91 (Geschka, Herstatt 1991). An identical survey was repeated in 1998 within the scope of a research project together with the Institute of International Innovation Management of the University of Bern (*). The scope was extended to the chemical...