How then can the R&D professional
listen to customers or end-users who are not able to articulate their needs
very well, if at all? How can we listen
for new and emerging needs when we are not certain that the end-user for
tomorrow’s new product will be the same one as today's?
We have observed three strategies for
listening to end-users who are not as “articulate” as we wish they would
be. The strategies are called ideation,
foresight and insight. All three
strategies require R&D to invest time and effort up-front in the
identification and understanding of opportunities before rushing to invent and develop solutions. However, each strategy takes the R&D
professional into a different set of activities and methods, each with its own
inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Ideation Strategy
The ideation
strategy relies heavily upon the generation of ideas. Here product developers generate and develop
new product concepts and use them as “hidden microphones” to listen for the
symptoms of new and emerging needs of end-users. These concepts are used to stimulate
reactions from end-users or customers with the hope that new and emerging needs
will be expressed.
One advantage of this strategy is that
it uses common and accessible tools and techniques of market research (e.g.,
focus groups). Having new concepts to
test gives you more of a reason to talk to customers, and conversing with
end-users within this context is familiar and safe.
One disadvantage of this strategy is
that the generators of the concepts often become wed to their ideas, and so the
concepts become the ends rather than the means of discovery. Even when concepts are regarded as “listening
probes,” R&D professionals often wonder whether potential areas of
opportunity were missed because the concepts were so limited in scope.
Foresight Strategy
The foresight
strategy uses trends to uncover new and emerging needs. The rationale is that new and emerging needs
come from new attitudes and behavior, which are derived from trends. If you identify and understand a trend, you
are in a better position to identify a new need.
Given the lead time it takes from
concept to commercialization to develop a breakthrough new product or
innovation, many try to uncover and anticipate new needs for enough in advance
to have time to prepare. The foresight
strategy is attractive to many because even with mediocre marketing, you should
be able to succeed if your new offerings are aligned with the momentum inherent
in the path of development.
In practice though, we have seen a lot
of R&D efforts become distracted with the identification and analysis of
trends. People often place too little
emphasis on making creative and solid associations between the trends, their
company’s core competencies and the new and emerging needs. They often over-indulge (in time and dollars)
on trend identification, while underestimating the importance of doing trend
analysis from the perspective of their company’s unique technical and market
strengths. Therefore follow-through and
internal integration efforts tend to fall short.
Insight Strategy
The insight
strategy, the least understood but perhaps the most potent of the three
strategies, uses in-depth interview and ethnographic methods of observation to
discover new and emerging needs. Carefully selected subjects – both existing
customers as well as “leading edge” users and even non-users – are interviewed
and observed in their “native” environments.
They are even invited into the interpretation of their own behavior and
attitudes. This is a good method for
originating proprietary end-user insights – perspectives on the end-user that
your competitor is not likely to see.
The insight strategy is not for the
faint of heart. It requires
organizational patience, a long leash extended to those involved in the
research, and a special tolerance for ambiguity, characteristics which are not
often found inside our organizations.
While it takes patience and discipline, the payoffs can be quite large –
total new “competitive spaces,” as 3M calls them, have been discovered with
this strategy that have led to new categories of products. The elusive “big idea” may result from this
strategy more than any of the others.
Ultimately, each team will want to
consider its own combination and variation of these three strategies. Whichever strategy is taken, the
identification of new and emerging needs is best done by R&D professionals
intimately familiar with the technical capabilities of their company and with what
is technically possible. Surround technically-savvy
R&D professionals with ideas, foresight and insight regarding existing and
potential end-users, and watch them help the market find the words for needs
that had previously remained silent or hidden.
Listening requires ears. Hearing requires empathy, understanding and
imagination.
This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in April 1997. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.
This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in April 1997. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.
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