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1704Taking Shanxi Keda Automatic Control Co., Ltd. and Shanxi Zhongtu Transportation Technology Co., Ltd. as the research objects, this paper conducts vertical analysis and horizontal comparison to explore the improvement path of “Niche Winner” independent innovation capability. Following the logical relationship of “business mode–collaboration path”, it summarizes the characteristics of “Niche Winners” in terms of resource constraints, R&D and marketing collaboration characteristics, collaboration methods, collaboration goals, and collaboration value, as well as the differentiated paths of R&D and marketing collaboration under different business modes. Finally, it extracts the theoretical model and research conclusions of this paper.
The study finds that, compared with leading enterprises in the industry, R&D and marketing of “Niche Winners” are “no-intermediary coordination” under the constraints of strong resources. (1) According to different business modes of “Niche Winners”, there are two collaboration modes: technology-oriented collaboration and market-oriented collaboration. (2) The starting point of technology-oriented collaboration is R&D. Through one-way feedback, R&D-led interaction, and deep participation in R&D collaboration, technology entrepreneurship ability, trend judgment ability, and rule building ability are formed, respectively. The starting point of market-oriented collaboration is marketing, which forms customer demand perception ability, technology market matching ability, and new product development ability through one-way opinion collection, marketing leadership, and deep participation in marketing collaboration.
The theoretical significance of this paper is that: (1) The external constraints of R&D and marketing collaboration are incorporated into the theoretical framework, and the theoretical model of R&D and marketing collaboration evolution to improve the independent innovation capability is constructed. (2) According to the different business modes of “Niche Winners”, two collaboration evolution modes of R&D and marketing are identified. This classification not only advances the research on R&D and marketing collaboration to the full life cycle of the special subject of “Niche Winners”, but also breaks through the research on the integration of R&D and marketing in the process of new product development. Under the guidance of the concept of “driving the market”, “Niche Winners” adopt technology-oriented collaboration; under the guidance of the concept of “market driven”, “Niche Winners” adopt market-oriented collaboration.
