Using Customer Insights To Stimulate Innovation

Not all innovation is technology-driven – sometimes re-thinking how things are done can bring real value. And the best inspiration for finding that new line of thought is the customer (whether they are external or inside your own company).

Charlotte Sibley, with Shire Pharmaceuticals, uses customer reaction as a barometer of innovation inside her own company. “… if I get a lot of pushback from internal customers, I know I’m pushing the innovation envelope,” she says.

Blogger Dave Pollard provides a list of non-technological ways of looking for innovation (from his How To Save The World blog:

• How you design your core offerings (e.g. the Mercedes Smart Car’s unique and imaginative attributes)
• Product system: How you link and/or provide a platform for multiple products (e.g. the Microsoft integrated productivity suite)
• Core processes: How you create and add value to your offerings (e.g. Wal-Mart’s reinvention of retailing as shelf-space leasing)
• Enabling process: How you support the company’s core processes and workers (e.g. Starbucks’ premium wage and benefits packages to attract superior staff)
• Service: How you provide value to customers and consumers beyond and around your products (e.g. Singapore Airlines’ thoughtful and pampering extras)
• Delivery Channel: How you get your offerings to market (e.g. Martha Stewart’s multi-media ways of getting her ‘home’ stuff to your home)
• Brand: How you communicate your offerings (e.g. Absolut vodka’s “theme and variations’ advertising concept)
• Customer experience: How your customers feel when they interact with your company and its offerings (e.g. the Harley Davidson owners’ community)
• Networks and alliances: How you join forces with other companies for mutual benefit (e.g. Sara Lee sticking strictly to branding and outsourcing all manufacturing)
• Business model: How you make money (e.g. Dell’s pay-in-advance for a custom-made PC model).

If you’re interested in investigating the concept of customer-driven innovation further, you may want to check out this white paper by Howard Moskowitz, Ph.D.