A short post from Taverner Research summarises our view on customer needs and reasons for product failure succinctly.
90 percent of all new products fail. You see them all the time: they fill bargain trays in department stores and mark-down aisles in supermarkets.
Why is this? What's wrong with the product development process? Why is failure so much more common than success?
According to Tony Ulwick of Strategyn, it's because people have got the innovation process the wrong way around.
Here's how it usually works. Someone has an idea - a lightbulb - about a fantastic new product. The idea is evaluated and if the right people give the thumbs up, it goes ahead. Maybe the idea comes from a brainstorming session. Either way, it is pretty much guesswork about what the market needs or wants.
Another source of ideas is customer feedback. But when you ask customers what they want, their answers aren't very useful. They either tell you about features your competitors offer, or they suggest things that in the end, they don't want enough to buy.
The solution, according to Ulwick, is to start with a systematic, rigorous look at what your customers are doing, or trying to do, in their lives and work. The goal is to find holes in real-world processes, holes that the customer would like help with. Maybe a workman needs to carry more tools up a ladder. Maybe a surgeon needs to reduce the chance of unwanted bleeding. This approach, driven by real life problems and solutions, is better and more useful than dreaming up products in thought bubbles.
With that as a starting point, you can work to fill real market needs as opposed to imagined market needs. Then, and only then, it's time to innovate.
To explore these ideas and concepts further, a recent webinar by Tony Ulwick is still available on the American Marketing Association website here: Kill Bad Innovation Theory and Revolutionise the Innovation Process. I also have a version of the content that I presented recently at the 4th Strategic Innovation Forum in Barcelona.
I shall be posting about how Outcome-Driven Innovation feeds StageGate product development processes very shortly.
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