NPD Opportunities Flashcards
Genius Thinking Strategies:
- Geniuses find many different ways to look at a problem. Einstein, for example, and da Vinci, looked at problems from many different perspectives.
- Geniuses make their thoughts visible. Da Vinci’s famous sketches, and Galileo’s diagrams of the planets, allowed them to display information visibly.
- Geniuses produce. Thomas Edison had a quota of one invention every 10 days. Mozart was among the most prolific composers during his short life.
- Geniuses force relationships. They can make connections where others cannot. Kekule dreamed of a snake biting its tail, immediately suggesting to him the circular shape of the benzene molecule.
- Geniuses think in opposites. This will often suggest a new point of view. Physicist Neils Bohr conceived of light as being both a wave and a particle.
- Geniuses think metaphorically. Bell thought of a membrane moving steel, and its similarity to the construction of the ear, leading to the telephone earpiece.
- Geniuses prepare themselves for chance. Fleming was not the first to see mold forming on a culture, but was the first to investigate the mold, which led to the discovery of penicillin.
- Geniuses make novel combinations. Einstein found the relationship between energy, mass, and the speed of light (the equation E = mc²)
Michael Jeffrey Jordan citation:
Limits, like fear, are often just an illusion.
Obstacles to Idea Generation:
Groupthink: We think we are being creative when in reality we are only coming up with ideas that our group will find acceptable.
Targeting error: We keep going back to the same simple demographic targets (for example, the under-35 or under-50 markets).
Poor customer knowledge: Lavish research spending doesn’t guarantee that customer research was done well.
Complexity: Creative types within organizations, as well as senior management, often think that the more complex the idea, the better it is (or the smarter and more promotable they seem).
Lack of empathy: These same managers are also well-educated, high-income individuals accustomed to an upscale lifestyle. They may simply not understand the ‘typical’ customer.
Too many cooks: A small new product team works fine, but large companies especially are prone to internal competition for power and influence.
Organizational Barriers to Firm Creativity:
Cross-functional diversity: Diversity leads to more creative stimulation but also to problem-solving difficulties.
Allegiance to functional areas: Team members need to have a stake in the team’s success, or won’t be loyal to the team.
Social cohesion: If interpersonal ties among team members are too strong, a candid debate may not occur, resulting in less innovative ideas.
Role of top management: Management should encourage the teams to be adventurous, otherwise only incremental changes will occur.
Required Inputs to the Creation Process:
- Form (the physical thing created, or, for a service, the set of steps by which the service will be created).
- Technology (the source by which the form is to be attained).
- Benefit/Need (benefit to the customer for which the customer
- sees a need or desire).
Technology permits us to develop a form that provides the benefit.
Some Patterns in Concept Generation:
- Customer need → firm develops technology → produces form.
- Firm develops technology → finds match to need in a customer segment → produces form.
- Firm envisions form → develops technology to product form → tests with customer to see what benefits are delivered.
Note: the innovation process can start with any of the three inputs.
What is a Product Concept?
A verbal or prototype statement of what is going to be changed and how the customer stands to gain or lose.
A combination of form, technology, need-benefit,
Rule: You need at least two of the three inputs to have a feasible new product concept, and all three to have a new product.
Why Do You Need a Product Concept?
- Needed to judge whether it is worthy of development.
- Potential customers do not have enough information to judge the worthiness of an idea: the product concept gives them the required information.
Ex.: Would a taxi operator like cars with a 10 cents per mile operating cost? (need) => Not if it used Caterpillar tractor technology instead of wheels! (need plus technology)
Product Concept - The Designer Decaf Example:
- Benefit: “Consumers want decaffeinated espresso that tastes identical to regular”.
- Form: “We should make a darker, thicker, Turkish-coffee-like espresso”.
- Technology: “There’s a new chemical extraction process that isolates and separates chemicals from foods; maybe we can use that for decaffeinating espresso coffee”.
Why would each of these taken individually not be a product concept?
What a Concept Is and Is Not:
IS: “Learning needs of computer users can be met by using online systems to let them see training CDs on the leading software packages.” (good concept; need and technology clear)”.
IS NOT: “A new way to solve the in-home training or educational needs of PC users.” (need only; actually more like a wish)”.
IS NOT: “Let’s develop a new line of instructional CDs.” (technology only, lacking market need and form)”.
Methods for Generating Product Concepts:
Two broad categories of methods:
- Gathering ready-made product concepts.
- Using a managed process run by the new products team.
Best Sources of Ready-Made New Product Concepts:
- New Products Employees
- Technical: R&D, engineering, design
- Marketing and manufacturing
- End Users
- Lead Users
- Resellers, Suppliers, Vendors
- Competitors
- The Invention Industry (investors, etc.)
- Idea exploration firms and consulting engineers
- Miscellaneous (continued)
Quality of Opportunities schema:
User Innovation—Iconic Cases:
- Dell’s Idea Storm: encouraged customers to submit ideas for new products and improvements to existing products online. Over 10,000 ideas were obtained from sources around the world.
- Apple used crowdsourcing in generating ideas for the iPad. Apple monitored reviews and blogs and also obtained Voice of the Customer data to understand the needs of potential users.
- Fiat solicited design ideas via their website when relaunching the 500 subcompact, and claims 500,000 combinations in their car configurator.
- Threadless invites contributors for T-shirt designs, encourages users to vote for favorite designs, and produces and sells the favorites.
Lead Users as a Creative Source :
An important source of new product ideas:
- Customers associated with a significant current trend.
- They have the best understanding of the problems faced, and can gain from solutions to these problems.
- In many cases, have already begun to solve their own problems, or can work with product developers to anticipate the next problem in the future.
Example: X-Games athletes for new high-performance snowboards. They provide design requirements and also are early adopters and good at stimulating word-of-mouth.
Problem-Based Concept Generation:
Problem Analysis: General Procedure:
- Determine product or activity category for study.
- Identify heavy users.
-
Gather set of problems associated with a product category.
- Avoid “omniscient proximity”—rate importance of benefits and levels of satisfaction.
- Sort and rank the problems according to severity or importance.
- Solve problems.
A Determinant Gap Map—Example
- Manager (or researcher) identifies two dimensions that become the attributes used in axes.
- These attributes should be differentiating and important.
- A two-dimensional map is created.
- Managers then score each brand on each of two dimensions/factors/attributes.
Advantages; Speedy and cost-efficient.
Disadvantages; Based only on manager’s judgment.
Attributes Rating (AR) Perceptual Gap Map:
- Ask customers to tell what attributes they believe products have.
- Perceptual map is based on market perceptions even though they may be incorrect (e.g. lollypop has high nutrition.)
- Perceptual map is based on customer rating on a set of attributes
- Usually rated on a Likert scale (strongly disagree / strongly agree) OR a semantic differential scale (nutritious / non-nutritious)
Advantages of AR map;
- Receive consumer insight
- Can see gaps in the market
Disadvantages of AR map;
- Complicated factor analysis
- May not be accurate consumer perceptions
- Attributes to be rated must be identified by manager and researcher.
- Measurement errors
