Exploring value and steering innovation. The case of telecommunication services for professionals

Exploring how value is perceived by customers can be problematic when the actor who is targeted by the innovation is a collective. This is the case for professional services that are intended for organizations like companies or administrations. In this paper we examine this issue of the multiplicity of expressions of the value of services intended for organizations, and the tensions that it induces in the running of a project. To what extent can innovators expect a convergence between various ways of assessing value, and possibly combine them so that relevant decisions can be taken to steer the innovation? One area in which the question raised is particularly sensitive is the provision of telecommunication services for companies and administrations. These configurations are characterized by the plurality of actors using the service, in organizational contexts that are themselves variable (final user, IT and telecom managers, corporate managers, etc.), and by the diversity of forms of evaluation involved in project development. We examine this question based on a monograph : the design of videophone services for medical applications and, in particular, applications for home hospitalization