Collaborative Trend Analysis Using Web 2.0 Technologies: A Case Study

Through early trend recognition in the business environment and specific processing within the innovation management, companies can achieve long-term market success. A particular challenge is the systematic identification, gathering, structuration and evaluation of trends. Web 2.0 technologies and especially Wikis, which allow several people to maintain and use content simultaneously, are eminently suitable for an efficient process of continuous collection and analysis of relevant market trends. In this paper, trend management processes are introduced and demonstrated how trends can be collected, structured and communicated within the enterprise using a customized wiki. The trend assessment is carried out inter alia on methods of crowd sourcing, resulting in an extensive evaluation basis. In addition, the presented approach includes a visualization of the trends and its assessment for decision support. A case study of global polymer solutions supplier REHAU AG demonstrates the use of the methodology in practice.