| Abstract [eng] |
Food Industry is one of the largest industries in Lithuania. Business organizations, which are operating in this sector, are facing huge local and international competition. There are many similar products in the marketplace and there is a high level of competition between manufacturers. These reasons imply that organizations, operating in this sector, should develop product innovations, that are perceived as newly created products (goods or services). According to Valodkienė and Snieška (2012), the success of today's competitive struggle is determined not by the size of a company, but by its ability to adapt to new circumstances, to exchange and to progress as soon as possible. According to Krešinskas and Benetytė (2014), in order to win in a competitive struggle, business organizations need to offer something new to the market participants. This can be achieved through developing product innovations. Acoording to the latest scientific literature, at the process of product innovation development it is rational to include not only the employees of the company but also the users of the product. Product innovation process often requires large investments, which, if the product failures, do not pay off and companies suffer significant losses. For this reason it is important to ensure that developed product innovation is tailored to the needs of the market as much as possible, and it can be achieved by involving consumers into the development of products. The food industry sector can be characterized by a high number of users of products, their rapidly changing needs, and low consumer loyalty. In such circumstances, the inclusion of consumers into the development of products is complicated. In addition, there are numbers of factors and circumstances that determine whether an innovative product development process and user engagement into it will be successful. |
