In order for companies to stay competitive on their market today, they need to have a rigid innovation strategy including product development. Customers demands more of their suppliers when it comes to product development, which means that the supplier needs to start focusing on collaborative product development with their customers. Collaborative product development is defined as: "An activity where the supplier and customer works jointly together, sharing their resources and expertise, to improve an existing or develop a new product." in this thesis. To successfully participate in the customers' product development, the supplier needs to have a business model as a guideline throughout the project. This business model needs to focus on the area that builds up trust with the customers since that is the single most important factor in order to succeed. This thesis aims to develop such a model and therefore it focuses on three research questions; How do a supplier develop trust in a collaborative product development project? What specific knowledge and expertise is necessary for a supplier to have in order to succeed with a collaborative product development project? What do a customer demand from a collaborative product development project? The thesis focuses on similarities between the interviewed companies on how they carry out their collaborative product development. This empirical data is also analyzed with the help of the theory using a triangulation method. The result from this analysis and the data gathering is a formulation of a business model, which follows a chronological order on how to proceed in a collaborative project. Following these steps and using the model, can build up a trustworthy relationship that will last throughout projects to come.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-98310 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Nordin, Fredrik |
| Publisher | KTH, Industriell ekonomi och organisation (Inst.) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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