Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot教程.docVIP

Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot Most ideas for new products are either uninspired or impractical. A systematic process, based on five innovation patterns, can generate ideas that are both ingenious and viable. Marketers will tell you that the best sources of new product ideas are customers, both current and potential. Increasingly, though, we’re seeing that customers lack the imagination to envision innovative products that address their emerging, or even existing, needs or desires. For example, participants in focus groups typically opt for product innovations that feature only minor changes from the current version. When these products hit the market, they often fizzle because small improvements aren’t enough to alter customers’ entrenched buying habits. Alternatively, as a way to get beyond predictable product extensions, developers are encouraged to “think outside the box.” Give free rein to your creative impulses, they are told, and try to imagine products that respond in truly innovative ways to customer needs. But more often than not, this kind of brainstorming yields a flurry of ideas that, while appealing, are just too far out, given the company’s brand image or capabilities. They are quickly discarded or, if they make it to market, simply flop. A classic example is Scott Paper’s erstwhile and unsuccessful foray into disposable paper party dresses. Whatever the merits of the concept, Scott – known for utilitarian products such as toilet paper – was probably not the company to bring this or any fashion-driven product to market. So how can product developers hit the innovation sweet spot – far enough from existing products to attract real interest, but close enough to fall within a company’s existing positioning and capabilities? We’ve seen many companies achieve impressive results using a method we call systematic inventive thinking. It represents a complete overhaul of traditional brainstorming, replacing the creative free-for-all with a highly disc