TITLE:
Business Reasoning for Rapid Productization in Small Enterprises
AUTHORS:
Kai Hänninen, Matti Muhos, Tuomo Kinnunen, Harri Haapasalo
KEYWORDS:
Rapid Productization; Reasoning; Business Case; Decision Making; SMEs
JOURNAL NAME:
Technology and Investment,
Vol.5 No.1,
February
24,
2014
ABSTRACT:
In order to succeed, companies must offer quality
products and services, ones that are in demand. Rapid productization (RP) is a
concept originating from practical challenges expanding customer
preferences. RP is a process of quickly supplementing a company’s product or
service offering to meet unexpected customer preferences. The objective of this
study is to describe how an RP exists in small enterprises and how the use of
RP is reasonable. This case study opens the RP concept by clarification of
business case objectives set to start RP, analysis of RP challenges and
description of business reasoning used for RP in the case companies. Products offered
to customers may be a result of cooperation among many companies, while the
products are modular, consisting of interlinking elements. When these types of
products are well managed, it can be easy to respond to changing customer
requirements. This type of RP can be the livelihood of especially small-and
medium-sized enterprises (SME). However, the capability of productizing
rapidly provides a significant competitive edge also for larger players.