Jun 1, 2010

Let Customers Create New Ideas For YouBy Jillian LakritzMediaPost.com

With the increasing focus on innovation and speed to market comes a need for efficiency, discipline and creativity in the new product development process. New product teams are being pressed to think differently, do differently and find more reliable ways to evaluate in-market potential. Whether you subscribe to the classical, stage-gate approach to product development found in most B2B or B2C enterprises or you take a more entrepreneurial, throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks attitude, there are steps along the product development path that can help reduce the risk of wasting time and resources on ideas that won’t survive in market.

Gather insights where the problem is relevant
Take research out of the focus group facility and to the issue. Whether it is where the product is used or the service is performed, the best learnings come from a combination of conversation and observation with customers on their own turf. Interacting with people in real-world environments allows you to use the surroundings as stimuli to spark meaningful discussion and develop context for how your offer might be used. The richer your understanding of your customers’ world, the more closely aligned your product will be with their needs.

Create relationships with customers to generate new ideas
Consumers are far more creative than we give them credit for and in that creativity, you will find smart ideas. Accelerate your innovation and product development efforts by creating a “voice of the customer” system that allows you to collaborate on new products and get instantaneous feedback on new ideas. For example, create a panel of pre-screened respondents who are on-call to participate in brainstorm sessions, react to concepts and share thoughts on a problem or idea. You get immediate results, respondents might get a chance to earn an incentive or bragging rights that they’ve helped shaped the next breakthrough product in the marketplace.

Read complete article.