Innovation is an idea with a customer.
Innovation without a customer is useless.
Often, something new and different is developed, but just doesn't sell - despite good efforts, and we ask ourselves, "why not?" Often, it's because the product was developed without a customer in mind.
"Technology push" innovations are those that have created a new product or service that hopefully, customers will buy. "Market pull" innovations are those that result from a new product or service that is developed at the request of a customer, or from marketing/sales' input that the market and customers clearly do, or would want. Either can work, under the right circumstances. Together, they work better.
The critical connection is matching technology push and market pull to each other. In the case of many innovations (particularly radical, technology-push innovation), the market doesn't tell us what it wants in clear terms. In market research terms, this is called unarticulated needs. If we listen carefully to the market and customers, we can translate these unarticulated needs into something the market and customers (the existence of a market does not guarantee the existence of a customer.) would want and (more importantly) value - if they saw it. The trick is how to do that, and to use that information to direct or channel R&D efforts toward more developments that would be valued by customers.
Most companies have an R&D effort of some kind, and for discussion purposes, are spending e.g., $10 on 10 new projects. Most such programs are well-intentioned, with the projects chosen by the best technical minds in the organization, with input from other functions such as marketing, sales, and significantly, upper management. The success rate (those that are profitably commercialized) is usually quite low (30% is regarded as good), and that is deemed acceptable by many.
Some say that research is turning money into knowledge. We say that innovation is turning knowledge into money. In today's tighter spending environment, many enterprises are cutting R&D spending. What if we could make R&D/new product development much more cost-effective - by spending fewer dollars (e.g., $7 vs. $10) concentrated on fewer projects (e.g., 5), with a markedly higher success rate (e.g., 50+%) - We could save money overall, and make more in the end as well. Here's where innovation can provide both cost reduction together with revenue and margin enhancement - a positive paradox.
It's possible. If we get and use better market and customer knowledge, we can focus our technical knowledge and development on higher probability efforts to. Here, the innovation is the combination of a new approach to anticipating and defining unarticulated market needs + using that information do focus R&D on those products/services that customers would value - and one that reduces spending, while increasing the chances of creating new, more profitable products.
This has been, and can be done - with a few people in a few weeks - using proven methods that work. If you want to know more about how to do it - faster, easier and more effectively, contact us.
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