Matching potential customer needs to technology seeds: Using a virtual catalog to extract customer needs in B2B manufacturing companies

Effective technology marketing that extracts potential needs from customers and matches them with a manufacturer's core technology seeds is very important in the current global, competitive market. Several methods have been proposed to extract these needs, including rapid prototyping, agile development, and design thinking. However, it is sometimes difficult to apply these methods in Business-to-Business (B2B) products such as industrial machinery because customer needs are complicated and context-dependent. “Virtual catalogs” (imaginary catalogs for future products) have been used by several B2B companies. Using virtual catalogs, product designers can specify their images of future products and use them to extract potential needs from customers. Although several procedures to construct virtual catalogs have been established, the methods for using these catalogs have not been scientifically investigated, and the effectiveness of their utilization depends on individual communication skills. This paper proposes an effective method of utilizing virtual catalogs and verifies the effectiveness by a laboratory experiment as a role-play test of technology marketing using virtual catalogs.