Posts Tagged ‘customer’

Two things that lead to innovation – Pain and Slack

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

If you want innovation then think about these two words – pain and slack. They can lead you to innovation success.

Wherever there is a pain there is a need for innovation. So if you are looking to create new products or services look for the pain points. Study your customers and their everyday activities. Where do they have difficulties in using the product or services that you and your competitors provide? What inconveniences them? What costs them time and effort? What slows them down? What is awkward or clumsy?

People have been taking their pet dogs for a walk for as long as the dog has been man’s best friend. In all that time people threw sticks or balls for their dogs to chase and retrieve. It seems a simple process with no pain point. Then some product designer noticed that it was awkward for people who did not throw well. Also there was the inconvenience of picking up a muddy ball. So the ball thrower was invented. It is a flexible piece of rubber that allows you to grasp a ball in the device and then to easily flick it a fair distance. Now when you go for a walk in the park you see many people using their ball thrower to amuse and distract their dog. Find the pain point and you have the starting point for an innovation that people need.

If you want your team to be creative and to turn creative ideas into prototypes then you have to cut them some slack. People who are working flat out all day on their normal work cannot find the time or energy to experiment with promising ideas but that is exactly what is needed for innovation to happen. You do not get innovation for free. You have to allocate time, people and money. You should allocate some time for your staff for the following activities; thinking about problems, well-facilitated brainstorm meetings, research , experimentation, prototyping and testing. 3M were leaders in this area with their famous precept that any engineer or scientist could spend 15% of his or her time on any research topic they wanted. They did not need to get their manager’s permission to pursue an interest but they did need to keep their manager informed. Google go further with their renowned allowance of 20% of time for all employees to explore any business topic that interests them. You do not have to be equally generous – a smaller amount of time can pay dividends. Give your people some clear challenges that need creative thinking and then give them some slack time to tackle these problems. You will be surprised at the results.

Increase your innovation capability by focusing on pain and creating some slack.

Paul Sloane

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Siemens report on Open Innovation

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Siemens have published a detailed report on Open Innovation.  It contains many interesting points including a report from Grant Thornton on the sources of ideas.  Their survey revealed that the best sources of ideas were as follows as rated by percentage of respondents:

Customers                              41%

Heads of Business Units           35%

Employees                              33%

Internal R&D                         33%

CEO                                      27%

Partners & Suppliers               26%   

Sales                                    17%

Do you work with customers on a systematic basis as a source of innovation?

Paul Sloane

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Ask – ‘What Business are we in?’

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Paul Sloane

The CEO of Black and Decker once said, ‘People don’t go into a DIY store because they need one of our drills. They go because they need a hole in the wall.’ Wonderbra in their internal communications to staff say this, ‘We do not sell underwear. We do not sell lingerie. What we sell is self-confidence for women.’ Harley Davidson does not sell motorbikes. It sells the concept of freedom to middle-aged men.

What is it that your business really sells? What is the true value that customers get from your products or services? When you know the answers to these questions you can start to conceive new ways to provide that value. It is the starting point for real innovation.

Many companies make the mistake of defining what they do in terms of their products or services rather than by the benefit that the client derives from those. Here are some examples

• Companies that thought they were in the horse-drawn carriage business but were really in transportation were wiped out by automobiles.

• Companies that thought they were in the ice supply business but were really in food and drink storage were eliminated by refrigerators.

• Companies that made slide rules failed to realise they were in the technical calculation business and were made obsolete by graphics calculators.

• Companies that thought they were in the CD business but were really in music were replaced by digital downloads.

• Companies that thought they were in the typewriter business but were really in communications were put out of business by the word processor.

What business are you in? Why do your customers buy the goods or services you provide? There are several ways to find out:

1. Ask your customers.
2. Ask people who consider your product but do not buy it.
3. Observe your customers and see how they use your product.

And of course the answer may well be different for different customers. Some people choose a certain marque of car to make them look good, others to feel safe and others to enjoy the ride. Unless you know exactly why prospective customers will buy your product you are unable to properly market or sell. Worse still you will be blind to the alternatives, the opportunities and the threats which exist.

Change how you define your business from your product to your product’s benefits for the customer. So instead of saying, ‘We make typewriters,’ say, ‘We help people communicate effectively.’ Instead of saying, ‘We are an innovation management consultancy,’ say, ‘We help clients develop new sources of revenue and profit.’

One definition of innovation in business is an action that extends customer value. So if we want to innovate we need to understand what it is that the customer really values. Then we can set our minds to the task of how to extend that value. Start every week by asking these questions:

• What business are we in?
• What do customers really value?
• In what other ways could that value be delivered?

These questions are always worth asking. The insights they lead to can be the source of potent innovation in your products and services.

Paul Sloane

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The Needs that Customers cannot articulate

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

I went for a walk in the park today and noticed that most of the people who were walking their dogs were using ball throwers.  We had a dog for many years and in all that time I threw balls and sticks for it and was never aware of any need for a ball thrower.  I guess that if you had asked 1000 dog owners what problems or needs they had in relation to their dog they would have come up with a 100 things before anyone thought of a ball thrower.  Yet now every other dog owner has one.  When anyone can throw a ball why does everyone need one?   Well they do offer some benefits.  They allow you to pick up the ball without getting your hand dirty.  You can flick the ball further than with an overarm throw.  And many women seem to find throwing a little challenging so they are convenient.  This inexpensive product is exploiting a need that most customers did not know they had.  The same goes for many other products and services.

How can you anticipate needs that customer surveys cannot reveal?  The best ways are by watching users and seeing what they do and what problems or difficulties they encounter.  How can you make every stage of the process easier for them?  Whether it is walking a dog or outsourcing the building of a nuclear power station there are always ways to make things easier.  In 10 years time we will all be using goods and services that no-one has thought of yet.  Just like the ball thrower for dog walkers.

Paul Sloane

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Customers can guide innovation

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Customers can be an important source of innovative ideas.  Many companies conduct conventional customer surveys and focus groups.  These are useful channels of feedback but in terms of original ideas they are often disappointing.  Customers are good at demanding incremental improvements in products, lower prices and better service but they are notoriously poor at predicting significant new products or innovations to meet their needs.  Before the fax machine was invented who would have predicted he needed it?  Which wearer of spectacles in the 1950s would have said that he wanted a lens to put on his eyeball or laser surgery to reshape his eye?  You can expect customers to tell you that they want more of what you offer and they want it better, faster and cheaper.  But do not count on them to tell you about different ways to meet their needs.

A more lateral approach to gain insights from customers is to study in detail how they use your type of product or service and to observe what practical problems they have.

Fluke Corporation of Seattle is noted for innovative hand-held measurement products.  They sent teams of observers to watch maintenance engineers in chemical plants.  They discovered that the engineers had to carry a variety of different instruments to calibrate different temperature and pressure gauges.  They also noticed that after taking the calibration measurement the engineer would write the readings on a clipboard and then transcribe them into a computer.  The process was time-consuming and prone to errors.  Fluke therefore designed a new product that used flexible software to allow it to calibrate any gauge in the chemical plant.  It also recorded the results, which could be directly downloaded to the engineer’s computer.  The resulting product was the Fluke Document Process Calibrator, which became a great success.

Haier is a leading Chinese manufacturer of white goods such as freezers and cookers.  Its engineers in rural China were surprised to find that people were using Haier washing machines to wash the vegetables they had grown in their gardens.  Turning this unexpected use into a new application, the Haier development team came up with a new wash cycle designed specifically for vegetables.  On another occasion a sharp-eyed engineer saw that a student had placed a plank between two Haier fridges to form a makeshift desk.  The company responded by designing a fridge with a fold-out desktop - ideal for small rooms that need an extra table or desk top.

Asking customers for feedback is good but observing them can be much better.  If you want to gain a march on the competition and design the products and services of the future watch your customers carefully.  Look for the areas of unexpected use, the headaches and problems that want to be solved or the unusual combinations of needs or uses.  They can give you the insights you need to generate successful innovations in products, services and processes.

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