Teresa Monjardino, Udo Reuter
BUSINESS DIRECTIONS
Paris 1999
QUALIS INTERNATIONAL
QUALIS INTERNATIONAL
QUALIS INTERNATIONAL
QUALIS INTERNATIONAL  
Brake, Motor, Petrol or Oil?
The Researcher's Role in the Innovation Process

The market rates for ''innovation'' never were as high as they are today. ''Innovation'' is chic and fashionable. Everybody wants ''innovation''. Publications, seminars and congresses with ''innovation'' as a title theme are extremely popular. People who know their way about it are much sought after. In the Internet one can find more than 1.5 million references relating to the word ''innovation''.

All this is relatively new. It is not so long ago that ''innovation'' was rather unpopular and met with rejection or scepticism in the consumer goods industry: ''Too much risk''. ''Too expensive''. ''Why at all?'' ... And looking back on history we remark that innovation has not always been welcomed by consumers either. The first machines were destroyed. The first railways, cars, aeroplanes and telephones were considered to be superfluous. The passionate discussions on genetic engineering show that the equations ''new = good'' and ''innovation = progress'' obviously do not meet with general approval.

Before considering our role in the innovation process we define our understanding of innovation. A more precise idea of the specific challenge to marketing researchers in the innovation process is given and our theses on the functions and roles of marketing research are developed.