A strategic focus on sustainable product innovation tool development for Vietnamese SMEs

A strategic focus on sustainable product innovation tool development for Vietnamese SMEs

Boudri, T.

Diehl, J.C. (mentor)
Christiaans, H.H.C.M. (mentor)
Jin, S. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Design Engineering

Design for Sustainability

2011-06-29

A lot of different tools and methods for strategic product development are being used used in the West. Companies cannot exist without doing a sufficient ammount of marketing and branding activities. Customer needs are explored on a daily basis and brands are developing itself to extent from the broad range of companies offering similar services. Companies in SouthEast Asia are having difficulties with competing against big markets like China in terms of production and export figures. The region has to find other differentiators to gain o more competitive position. One of the possibilities for the local industries is to add value to their products by applying Sustainable Product Innovation (SPIN) in their new product development. The SPIN project therefore has the purpose to support local SMEs in Vietnam, Lao PDR and Cambodia with developing (new) products and implementing those products on (inter) national markets. One of the knowledge gaps of the local SMEs in Vietnam is the area of strategic approaches of product innovation. The main goal of the graduation project was to provide tools that will supplement the SPIN consultancy guide in order to create ‘successful’ products. This consultancy guide has to provide the SMEs a step-by-step guidance in developing their products and position those on the right markets. A lot of research has been done in Vietnam to gain insights on the context of the strategic modules. Sector organizations and local SMEs were interviewed in order to derive needs and wishes of the target group of the consultancy guide. The SPIN project continues on a previous project, called the CP4BP project. This project focussed on the production of the products only, but worked within the same context as the SPIN project. The CP4BP project has been evaluated on its results and structure in order to gain learning’s and guidelines for the development of the new consultancy guide. A SPIN knowledge transfer framework was developed in the beginning of the project by the SPIN project’s team to give some structure on the planning and activities of the project. This framework is based on Diehl (2010) and gives an overview on which levels the SPIN projects operates. Level 1 is considered to be the train of trainers sessions in which the trainees will be trained to work at the companies to implement the SPIN approach. Level 2 is considered to be the demonstration projects in which the SMEs will work with the trainers. Literature on existing methods and tools on branding and marketing were explored and analyzed on the possibilities of being useful for the SPIN content. Since the theory of the methods used for the strategic development modules had to be of an introduction level, basic theory on branding and marketing activities are being used to form the theory. During the synthesis phase the modules were developed and the collected theory was transformed in order to fit to the guide. Worksheets were developed to guide the user of the guide through the whole SPIN process in a step-by-step approach. Participatory design groups were used to discuss the content of the guide and to come up with solutions for some minor discussion parts. Hereafter the modules were tested during a train-of-trainer session (level 1), in which thirty trainers were trained to use the SPIN consultancy guide at SMEs during the so called ‘demonstration projects’ for implementing the SPIN methodologies. At an introduction weekend of the first demonstration project (level 2) for six tea companies the modules were also tested. The first results of the strategic development modules can be seen as positive. The users saw most exercises as easy to follow and the results of most exercises were acceptable. The evaluation of the results came up with a few remarks. Some minor changes were made on the structure and rephrasing some exercises and theory after the first round of tests, but the major part of the content stayed untouched. Recommendations on both short-term as long-term were suggested after the evaluation. Short-term recommendations were that the interaction between the theory in the guide and the worksheets should be improved. During the tests it was clear that the users did not use the worksheets and the guide at the same time, in order to stimulate this, improvements on the structure of the consultancy guide has to be made. There was also found that the concreteness of the answers in the worksheets can be of a higher level. Some changes in the description of the assignments and clearer goals of the exercises the user can stimulate the user to answer a more concrete and feasible way. Long-term recommendations can be to include the opportunities of the Internet to the consultancy guide. A suggestion is made in this report to make use of an interactive platform in which the users are able to share information and results of their cases with other users. Such a platform offers the possibility for trainers and SMEs to help each other and learn from colleagues in the same field. A straightforward design process with an extensive analysis phase characterizes this graduation project. The end result of this graduation project is a strategic development module with an introduction to branding and marketing activities that fits into the general SPIN consultancy guide.

Sustainable Product Innovation
Design for sustainability
Branding and marketing

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e604d1e9-062a-4b03-b8b8-97343ebb40b2

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2011 Boudri, T.