Innovative scanning experiences from an idea generation project at Volvo Cars

This paper discusses a project at Volvo Cars aimed at idea generation and product expansion proposals. A major concern of many businesses is how to organize and manage early phases of product development—the front end—to ensure innovativeness. Drawing on models for new concept development, environmental scanning may be seen as a tool for executing idea genesis, however, different in its components, as compared to environmental scanning for strategy purposes. The case at Volvo Cars clearly showed the need for focusing on the back-end of the scanning process to balance the need for uncertainty reduction without prematurely closing the scope of innovativeness.