Abstract
This research argues that how a Danish medical device firm has established global competitiveness with collaboration of professional users. As a background, Nordic firms have recently attracted to their strategic management and new product development with the Japanese researchers and practitioners. From the view of user innovation and global niche market, we interviewed senior managers of a Danish medical device firm which has boasted the top sales in the certain diagnostic products in the global market. Our exploratory key findings are (1) open innovation with academia at the early stage, (2) collaborative innovation with professional users at practical use, and (3) the “Kaizen” activity incorporated into the research and technical development process. We imply that more frequent practical experiences at Gemba (workplace) are critical to R&D researchers and product designers for creating global competitive products as strategic practice.
