Embedded Open Toolkits for User Innovation: Postponing New Product Development Decisions into the Customer Domain

Postponement is an approach to reduce risk in new product development by delaying design decisions. Addressing the problem of elicitation and transferring customer needs, which proved to be sticky and difficult to transfer prior to product launch, this paper proposes to move the point of postponement into the customer domain. Products based on technologies such as embedded open toolkits enable customers to transfer their needs directly into possible product designs after purchasing. Therefore this paper provides an analysis of contingency factors and discusses strategic implications of postponing new product development decisions into the customer domain by using embedded open toolkits.