International Market Selection for Service Innovation
Heimonen, Johanna Leena (2004)
Kuvaus
Kokotekstiversiota ei ole saatavissa.
Tiivistelmä
The Information technology company Novo Group Plc, as an outcome of a US. alliance, is providing a specialised software Adept, which enables cost-effective Demand Responsive Transportation. This transportation system is directed especially to physically-challenged people. This service concept including the optimisation software is relatively new in Europe. It can be considered to be an innovation that varies from service improvement to major innovation depending on the country. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the European market to find the ideal target markets for this service innovation.
To find the correct markets the international market selection (IMS) process had to be investigated further. At first the main selection criteria had to be defined for finding the market drivers and barriers for the service innovation. Based on the findings the theoretical framework, “6 C’s of international market analysis for service innovation”, was developed. Four of the 6 C’s, the external factors, were considered to be crucial factors when choosing the ideal markets. Customer analysis concentrated on end-user and third sector analysis, whereas country analysis on the regulations related to an innovation. A new term “Cycle level” (level of the product life cycle in the country) was defined and analysed together with competitor environment to specify at which stage of the product and market development the ideal target country would be.
Two of the 6 C’s, Characteristics of the service innovation and Company capabilities, were seen to have a more important role in expansion decision. By predicting how the internal resources; company capabilities and the service innovation itself, act in the international markets, the diversification versus concentration dilemma should be overcome. At the end of the theoretical part seven different selection methods were introduced to make the final selection. Three of them were chosen to be tested and evaluated in the empirical part.
In the empirical part the given theoretical framework was followed. To analyse all of the 6 C´s secondary data as well as primary data were used. Even a relatively large amount of e-mails was sent and phone calls were made, the research was qualitative. Research gave a good picture of the special transportation services and DRT in the European Union countries. This gave a strong basis to decide on the expansion strategy and to make the final selection of the target markets. In the last stage the final selection methods were tested. According to the results and evaluations, a linkage between selection criteria and selection methods was created and a matrix of when to use a specific selection method was made.
To find the correct markets the international market selection (IMS) process had to be investigated further. At first the main selection criteria had to be defined for finding the market drivers and barriers for the service innovation. Based on the findings the theoretical framework, “6 C’s of international market analysis for service innovation”, was developed. Four of the 6 C’s, the external factors, were considered to be crucial factors when choosing the ideal markets. Customer analysis concentrated on end-user and third sector analysis, whereas country analysis on the regulations related to an innovation. A new term “Cycle level” (level of the product life cycle in the country) was defined and analysed together with competitor environment to specify at which stage of the product and market development the ideal target country would be.
Two of the 6 C’s, Characteristics of the service innovation and Company capabilities, were seen to have a more important role in expansion decision. By predicting how the internal resources; company capabilities and the service innovation itself, act in the international markets, the diversification versus concentration dilemma should be overcome. At the end of the theoretical part seven different selection methods were introduced to make the final selection. Three of them were chosen to be tested and evaluated in the empirical part.
In the empirical part the given theoretical framework was followed. To analyse all of the 6 C´s secondary data as well as primary data were used. Even a relatively large amount of e-mails was sent and phone calls were made, the research was qualitative. Research gave a good picture of the special transportation services and DRT in the European Union countries. This gave a strong basis to decide on the expansion strategy and to make the final selection of the target markets. In the last stage the final selection methods were tested. According to the results and evaluations, a linkage between selection criteria and selection methods was created and a matrix of when to use a specific selection method was made.