HIGHLIGHTS

• Researchers in this day and age need to be more agile, adaptive, and customer-centric.
• Products or innovations must meet customer’s technological needs while generating profitable returns for the company.
• Knowing customer’s pain points will help researchers develop viable solutions.

Today’s rapidly-evolving business circumstances have fueled the growth of customer’s diverse and personalized demands. And to respond to the needs of customers in a fast and timely manner, the researcher these days must not merely be serving as a scientist but also incorporating marketing strategies, generating business’s returns, and adapting to work constraints and ever-changing business environment. In this article, a team of researchers will uncover the changing roles of today’s researchers.

Mr. Somchoke Limwongsaree, Senior Researcher of SCG Packaging, said that nowadays, a market-back approach has become a cornerstone of development process that is used to ensure whether the developing products or innovations is fulfilling the goals or not. If the two are aligned, the product and innovation development are able to satisfy the needs together with marketability and commercial viability. The most crucial thing is the convergence of the customer needs and what researchers can do. The researcher’s capability will determine the development of innovations and products.

Compared to the past, Ms. Juthamas Mahajaroensiri, another researcher from Packaging Business, said that the current product development process starts with searching for market trends, weighing current capability to undertake them, identifying the capabilities to see which one requires co-development to deliver the solution, and lastly prioritizing.

Ms. Ittiporn Ardpru, Researcher at SCG Packaging, said that to develop a new innovation or product, researchers have to act more like a marketer and embrace customer-centricity and holistic thinking. The innovation and product development are intended to achieve the ultimate goals: commercial success and fulfilment of customer’s technological needs. The today’s innovation development must be responsive to the business demands.

The researcher’s responsibility is to help bridge the gap between marketers and customers and translate customer needs into a new product. In some cases, researchers must work with marketers to gain customer insights to ensure that they truly know and understand customers. The product that has a commercial capability cannot be successfully brought about by a team of researchers alone but also the cooperation of all sides.

“We need to talk to customers to gain insightful information. And sometimes, we may learn undiscovered pain points, which can help us develop solutions that better meet their needs.”

The involvement in the end-to-end process enables researchers to extract valuable market needs and develop them into a feasible and viable product that meets customer needs. Moreover, they must make sure that the developed innovation and product can be transitioned from the research and development stage into a commercial product that offers reasonable and affordable prices where the customers are willing to pay, along with having expected levels of quality in a timely manner.

Ms. Punnarai Rungsiriwattana, Researcher of Packaging Business, added that customer needs have evolved; therefore, researchers have to put themselves in customers’ shoes and explore new market trends and different perspectives from exhibitions. This also includes joining market research studies to gain customers’ behavioral insights to truly and thoroughly understand customers in order to create innovations that best meet customer needs.

“We cannot do everything, but we can be selective about what we choose to do. And it must match what the customers and consumers need where we can develop further.”

Once learning the customer’s pain point, it’s the researcher’s duty is to make it possible, making it like a challenge. We have to achieve this goal with limited resources. It will involve adjusting the process, seeking support from other departments, when to do it, how to do it to make all parties on the same page.

Another challenge the researcher has to face, Mr. Buncherd Ngamnawakul, Researcher of SCG Packaging, noted, is to earn customer’s trust in what we are developing. Aside from the cooperation of all parties, another critical factor is working with people. It requires effort, patience, and open ears in a concerted effort towards the same goal.

One thing that the SCG Packaging researcher team highly values is maintaining a startup-like work environment. Since everyone feels a sense of product ownership, it will lead to solidarity, which has a significant effect on achieving the same goal.

To define the changing role of a researcher, Dr. Watchara Anannarukan, Senior Researcher of SCG Packaging, said the most appropriate term for it is “Business Scientist.” It is the role that allows researchers to explore business models and gain insights directly from the customers alongside salespeople and marketers. This is to find customer’s needs, pain points, and latent needs, which can be developed into efficient and practical products or innovations that can directly meet customer’s needs.