Visionary competence for long-term development of brands, products, and services: The trend receiver concept and its first applications at Audi

This paper focuses on the question who companies should talk with to be able to make complex long-terra decisions, find vision and develop products and services that only come to market in a few years. Currently, there is room for improvement within the process of profiling and identifying the right conversation partners for studies on future customer expectations. Therefore, twenty existing concepts such as lead users, early adopters, and cutting edgers were reviewed. A typology of the agents of the new is elaborated and based on literature, quantitative and qualitative research as well as practical experience, the trend receiver concept is developed. By the author's-definition, a trend receiver is an individual who perceives and reflects changes and potentials of the new in a specific domain in a highly sensitive and differentiated way. Seventeen applications of this new concept at Audi (from 2009 to 2013) with over 300 trend receivers, contribute to an understanding of the value of this approach. This paper discusses the characteristics of trend receivers and reflects on the tailor-made search process and search profiles necessary to identify individuals with such capabilities. In addition, it discusses how to organize the conversation process with trend receivers and how this novel approach can best contribute to vision finding, long-term decisions and brand, product and service development. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.