Obtaining and Leveraging Customer Knowledge for Customer-Oriented Products - A State-of-the-Art View of Strategies and Methods

The purpose of the theoretical part of this dissertation is to provide an overview of existing strategies and various methods, which can be utilised by companies to obtain and leverage customer knowledge. The goal of the survey conducted in the empirical part of the paper is to give a state-of-the-art view of how companies within selected industries and geographic regions involve (potential) users of their products in the innovation process. Further, the international survey aims at giving the reader insights as to the question whether there are any striking industry-specific or region-specific differences with regard to the use of instruments for obtaining customer knowledge presented beforehand. As to geographic differences with respect to customer involvement, the survey does not allow to draw conclusions. Concerning the diffusion of the methods in the chosen industries the research indicates notable differences