Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Get Innovative
Stay Competitive
Gareth Loudon
Light Minds Ltd.
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Why Innovate?
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Only 65% of registered businesses in
the UK survive longer than 3 years
National Statistics Office (2000)
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
In the UK, at least 50% of new
products fail within their launch year,
while many of the remainder never
become a major success (90% in total)
National Statistics Office (2000)
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
How can this happen?
• Because people:
– Do not want to use them (desire)
– Do not use them (purpose)
– Do not enjoy using them (satisfaction)
• Notice no mention of technology
– You don’t have to invent a new technology to
create an innovative and successful new
product
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Good to Great Companies
• Good-to-great companies never use
technology as the primary means of igniting a
transformation
• However, they are pioneers in the application
of carefully selected technologies
• Technology by itself is never a primary, root
cause of either greatness or decline
– Jim Collins, also author of Built to Last
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
“It’s trivial technology that disrupts the
business model of the leading
company, and that’s what makes it so
hard”
Andy Grove, Chairman and former CEO of
Intel Corporation
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Discriminating Success Factors
• Different studies covering the 1970’s, 1980’s and
1990’s show that understanding of users’ needs
is the main discriminating factor between
successful and unsuccessful products
– UK study at University of Sussex - project SAPPHO
– US Study by Booz, Allen and Hamilton
– Hewlett-Packard internal findings in the 1990s
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Successes & Failures
• What made one succeed and one fail?
RATNERS
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Meeting a Customer Need
• Every product has a
– Use (purpose)
– Level of usability
– Meaning (symbolism)
• All must be considered during the R&D phase to
create a successful product
• Innovating around these areas will have benefits
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Meeting a Customer Need
• “Often the product’s meaning is most influential
in the customer’s purchase decision and in the
creation of a positive ownership and use
experience”
Sara Beckman & Johannes Hoech, Harvard Business Review, 2000.
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Use, Usability and Meaning
• The use, usability and meaning of these products are
very well researched and developed
Timeless, Elegant, Powerful
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Meeting a Customer Need
• Use, usability and meaning covers
–
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–
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Design
Manufacturing
Marketing
Branding
Advertising
Packaging
• Therefore ALL your company needs to be
involved in innovation
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
“A successful product is the
physical embodiment of a strategy
that aligns users, technology and
culture”
Michael Barry, Point Forward Inc.
(inventor of Huggies Pull-Up nappies)
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
So how do you innovate on a
low budget?
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Customer Ideas
• Can you just ask users what they want and then
make it for them?
– Not usually!!!!!
– However customers are a key element in the new
product development process
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Low-Budget Innovation
• Have visits to potential customers
– Listen to “what they say”
– Observe “what they do”
– Observe “what they use”
• This is known as ethnographic research
• Combine with market analysis to describe the
customer needs
– Validated by observations and market data
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Ethnographic Research Benefits
• Provides real life accounts of customers’ everyday
activities, needs, desires, beliefs and values
• Highlights the differences between what people do and
what they say they do, and as a result find needs that
have not been directly expressed
• Describes what meanings people place on products and
how products are used
• Gives insight into new product opportunities
• It’s cheap
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Translating Customer Insight
• Turn customer insights into product design ideas
– Brainstorm with key people from your organisation
• Marketing, design, engineering, etc.
– Use storyboards to show product in its context of use
– Create mock-ups of sample products
• Physical mock-ups out of foam
• Paper drawings
• Mock-ups of interactive software interface
• Take concepts back to users to get feedback
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Exploration and Design
• Use the customer as design assistants
• Iterate through market analysis, user need
assessment and rapid prototyping until satisfied
• “Serious Play” – Michael Schrage
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Case Studies
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Huggies Pull-Ups
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
GoGurt
• General Mills make
breakfast cereal and
needed a new product to
boost their sales
• General Mills employed a
consultancy company
called GVO to help
discover new customer
insights based on
ethnographic research
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
GoGurt
• The result was GoGurt
portable yogurt for kids
• In just two years, it captured
7% of the $2 billion yogurt
market
• The product is healthy
enough for Moms to give to
their kids any time of the day
and is "cool" enough for kids
to eat during their morning
recess
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
The Fridge Pack
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Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Local SMEs
• No. 6 Software Ltd.
• WISE KIDS - WAG
• IBBD “Home Life Work Life” Solutions
• Spin Out Wales
• Training through Cardiff University, Centre for
Lifelong Learning
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Summary
• Innovation is not just for the technology research
department (Apple Computer closed theirs)
– Get marketing, design & engineering involved together
– Use potential customers as design assistants for new ideas
• Iterate through market research, ethnographic research
and rapid prototyping to create and refine your product
– Meets a customer need
– Simple low-tech approach
– Keeps your development costs down
• Use, Usability and Meaning
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Interesting Books
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Good to Great Companies, Jim Collins
Serious Play, Michael Schrage
The Invisible Computer, Donald Norman
Creating Breakthrough Ideas, Susan Squires
The Innovators Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
The Purple Cow, Seth Godin
Eureka!: Making Brilliant Ideas Happen , Philippa Davies
Riding the Waves of Culture, Fons Trompenaars
Built to Last, Jim Collins
The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004
Light Minds
Product Innovation Strategies
Thanks
© Copyright, Light Minds Ltd. 2004