The design and evaluation of an interactive assessment instrument to improve the front end of mobile service innovation

TLDR: Changes to the process for mobile service innovation recorded in this thesis are changes in the exchange of key information which resulted in improved communication and changes to the structure of the activities in the innovation processWhich resulted in the activities and roles becoming more transparent.

Abstract: Mobile services have become vital in both business and avocation and the future of mobile telephony is expected to rely on mobile services. However, recent mobile service adoption trends contradict this statement as adoption is much slower than expected. One possible reason for this is the ineffective management of activities at the front end of the innovation process (FEI). For example, effectively managing the activities at the FEI can contribute to the overall success of a new product/service. This thesis explores the innovation process with a particular focus on the FEI in the context of mobile services. Several challenges at the front end of mobile service innovation are revealed. The objective of this research is to address these challenges and consequently improve the front end of mobile service innovation. The Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM) is followed to create an Interactive Assessment Instrument to facilitate decision makers with defining and evaluating mobile concepts at the FEI. This instrument is referred to as the Mobile Concept Assessment Instrument (M-CAI). The M-CAI is evaluated to understand what impact it had on the FEI. This involved implementing the M-CAI in the innovation process of three real-world organisations to capture the overall ‘change’ in the organisations innovation process as a result of its use. The main changes to the process for mobile service innovation recorded in this thesis are: 1) changes in the exchange of key information which resulted in improved communication, 2) changes to the structure of the activities in the innovation process which resulted in the activities and roles becoming more transparent. Finally, 3) concept definition and evaluation activities at the FEI were simplified which resulted in improvements to the decision makers understanding of key decision elements and consequently decision making in the mobile service innovation process.