Does Customer Involvement in Product Development Improve Efficiency and Sustenance of the Business?

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: B, The University of Liverpool, language: English, abstract: Every organization seeks to increase customer satisfaction level. This is the key objective for any organization's survival and performance excellence especially for companies involved in designing products for their customers. Creating and managing superior customer value requires their involvement to a certain degree to shape what they need their products to look like. Customer involvement bases its roots on the importance conferred by the customer on the product, the use context of the product and the perceived risk levels (Brethauer, 2002). This therefore includes the role that the product will play in competitive strategies for the purchasing companies.
Kinetek Jinghe (KJH) which was founded in 1988 has focused on designing and manufacturing of drive and transmission technology. It has top clients which it considers very crucial to its survival hence conforming to a strategy that involves them in product development.
According to an article written by Power (2013), companies should not jump into designing products with a perception that they fully understands the demands of customers;