Q. 99  When it comes to designing an innovative product, there are two schools of thought.

 

One school believes in innovation that is based on customer needs, wants and expectations. 

The other school argues that the customer cannot express his desire unless you show something to him. A famous adage by Henry Ford is attributed to the second school of thought - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said - Faster Horses!.”

Which side of the debate do you find yourself? Explain with suitable examples. 

 

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If it's about innovative designing and creativity, why be led by what meets the eye?

It's time to preempt customer demands before they are explicit. A good product has the power to create demand. 

First mover advantage being only one of the major pluses. Many products come to mind - Nintendo Wii & Facebook to name a couple. Nintendo didn't focus on already saturated gamers market but went for blue ocean strategy with Wii- focusing on non-gamers, complete with a range of games, rather experiences that one could explore with Wii like the cooking games, Wii Fit, and many more.

Likewise, Facebook exploits the fact that human beings are social animal and provided a virtual extension to socializing. Whilst whether it's good or bad for us is debatable, they have done really well with designing an engaging experience. 

 

Whilst I stick to the latter school of thought, with a product or service it is important to focus on customer experience than just the expressed need or want. 

I will be going with the stance that innovation needs to be based on customer needs and exceptions. This  has been further elaborated with a brief summary and  few examples :

 

Customer needs are highly dynamic in nature therefore for retaining customers it becomes imperative for every organization to keep coming up with new products and services. This also defines the future growth prospects in their respective area of business.

 

Modern customers through their inherent trait of comparing , going by word of mouth and being connected 24/ 7 through various internet devices are in the best position for driving innovations and product development indirectly by sharing their real time quality experiences with the ultimate intent of getting  more value for their spending. This in turn gives a good insight to organizations for making product decisions, investing in R&D , making new innovation and drive sales more prudently by making customers co-creators in new product innovation.

 

Examples Of Customer Driven Innovation :

 

A fast food organization through customer feedback (by  appropriate means like interviews/ surveys ) can always improve their existing lines of offerings and introduce new products in the market as per customer preference.

 

A toy manufacturing company can involve customers (children of various age groups) by asking them to come up with new toys design suggestion as per their imagination . This can be shared online on the company website with an option for voting on for them . The design with maximum votes and feasibility will be created and sold in the respective market. The creator can be rewarded handsomely in accordance with the company policy. This concept can certainly help in promoting innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.

 

 

 

 

In my opinion second school of thought is more relevant in today's fast changing Digital world. If we have asked customers about what they want as innovation in cab booking they would have asked for incremental improvements but see how Uber and Ola has implemented innovation in this and reimagined complete process. Earlier we used to struggle to book a cab and now you can have it in few minutes. In today's scenrio even customers are not aware that how much innovation can be done through new digital tools and technologies. Take example of block chain which is innovating many industries which no body has imagined. Crypto currency is example of successful implementation of block chain. Who has thought of transferring cumoney using crypto currency in micro seconds.if we would have asked customers then they only have suggested to reduce TAT of money transfer. There are many more innovations happening where customers are offered products and services they have never thought of like PAYTM, Zoom video calls, chat bots to replace human involvement in call centers, driverless cars. So second school of  thought is more apt, now even leaders don't hesitate to try innovation and fail early in place of not trying new things. New methodologies like Design Thinking along with Lean Six Sigma, Agile, Digital technologies are enabling organizations to think out of box. Now there is no box, you can think in any direction and disruptive ideas are acknowledged and appreciated more by clients. Everybody is looking for big improvements in products and services. In many scenrio s even customers are not aware about potential problems like information security, impact of automations on security, personal data leakage through social media so lot of innovation scope is there to identify potential problems and design solution for these. We are living in a world where people are not aware about potential problems from new technologies and solutions of these issues. So for innovation we can not depend on customers now, we have to reimagined customer problems and solutions through new tools and methodologies otherwise we will be left behind in innovation race and like Darwin said "it's not strongest of species will survive, only those will survive who can adapt to changes continuously" so if we will not change our approach for inovations we will not survive in this fast changing world.......Regards Vijay Sardana

Introduction

At the outset let us understand the difference between the want, the need and the expectation. The ‘want’ and ‘need’ are not the same.  ‘Want’ is you would like to have, whereas ‘Need’ is you have to have. For example, humans have basic needs like food, shelter and cloth. Anything beyond this is your want like food in five star hotel, a big bungalow and branded clothes. Whereas, ‘Expectation’ is the anticipated circumstances. For example, one may feel that if I join new job I might be able to repay my home loan immediately or someone may expect that I want to purchase new house. So, these are the probable or likely or anticipated circumstances from this new job.

Many times what customer wants or need have trouble in expressing it or find it difficult to narrate for various reasons like technical, commercial etc.

Problem Statement

Whatsoever even though we want to exceed customer expectations but without understanding their wants and needs it is difficult to do so.  The customer may want an apple, but he was in need of orange and we delivered watermelon assuming his expectation. To avoid this we need to show the customer what we have done after interpreting his requirement.   

Solution

In any study it is essential to identify, discuss and freeze. Thus, by using “Show and Tell” concept one can get

·         Get multiple perspectives of the stated problem

·         Check for conflicts as well as reinforcements

·         Able to filter the blame part of the problem statements and classify them as events that prevent operations. These would translate into high level requirements for addressing the business pain area and as requirements for the systems

This strategy must be applied to whatever stage we enter into the engagement, the team must give opportunity to the customer to express his desire by showing the in-process building system from time to time. This will help to identify the,

·         Business pain area (problem recognition)

·         Perceived solution for the pain area

·         Study scoping of the requirement

·         Business model – drawing of complete process maps (including workflow, rules, location for the processes, managing events, etc.)

By using this concept of ‘show and tell’, one can split the pain areas into smaller components and establish accountability, validate and re-validate goals and from time to time check for feasibility of the solution components and trigger innovations.   

 

Regards,

Vaishali Tikare

For creating a beautiful product which to be very successful in the market with scalability and high performance, all aspects like business sense, technology and users are important. Now one can start the debate about -- which is the pivotal point between business, technology & people. But the reality is all the three.

 

Now let us consider users gives requirements which are next to fantasy, then technology might come in the way. Even if we can able to implement them then the next big question would be about business viability to create & maintain the product.

Overall my argument is: user desires mapped to requirements should drive the product design complimented with thorough analysis of technology and creating a safe business plan. With all three coming together one can create a long lasting product in the market.

 

Now let us take few real world examples. During early 90's Motorola started a very ambitious project to have satellite phones by launching a total of 66 satellites. The technology was cutting edge at that time and it worked as per specification. But this whole project venture failed due to per phone call usage cost. This is a classic example of great product with niche technology without biz viability.

 

Another great example is Microsoft's Lumia (Windows) phone, in which there was very good investment on UI & UX of the product with multiple surveys for  user-centric design. Quite robust Windows technology reused. But at if failed in the market because it did not able to reach profitable stage. Some of the reasons are product BOM cost was quite high so that they could not able to generate a good margin.

 

The third example is about AoL (America Online) which failed due to technology to some extent in which other two parts (biz & consumer requirements) were taken care. In-fact AOL was arguably the mother all messaging app in current scenario. It had all right ingredients like Email, Buddy list, & all. But ultimately it failed when competitors started using high speed internet services. AOL couldn't able to recognise this fact fast & failed by not employing right faster internet back-end infra for its service.

 

So one can find many such real world examples, which proves that one can not just leave complete product innovation to consumer needs/wants. Its a fine balance between all the three pillars -- consumer needs/wants, business sense & technology. Of course there are other salient factors like quality, competition, etc. will also play roles in shaping the innovation.

These are not two schools actually – one needs to understand in different perspective.

Needs, wants and expectations is the key – One need to research on needs even if those are latent.  A product from Ford school of thought won’t succeed if it does not fulfill a customer’s need. 

 

Innovation can be understood on improving current product, but there are several types / levels of innovation i.e. Product Innovation, Process Innovation, Technology Innovation and Business Innovation besides the lowest rung i.e. cost innovation.  If one is able to work on Business Innovation – s/he might touch Ford idea of new product / service. For example Tatkal scheme by Railways is one such innovation which fulfills a latent need of travelers who cannot predict their travel till few days / a day ago.  They are ready to pay higher.  They used to go to touts and agents. They were anyway paying higher.  Now Railways understood the need, kept aside say 30% of seats for Tatkal and whoa additional revenue, latent customer need, unscrupulous touts agents all are taken care of.

 

In above example customer did not come out with Tatkal model but need was very much expressed.  Business owner needs to research, work deep in understanding psyche, work with customers, sometimes go into their shoes, talk to them to find out the pain point and work on the product.  The product which may fulfill future need may not be worth acceptance and we say – its idea has not come as yet.

Edited October 7, 20187 yr by Yogesh Jain

The question of what should i sell, that what the customer wants, or that which shall create customers, This is what according to me lies at the heart of this question.The key thing is innovations by itself are not bad, but it is the success that drives it further . The World has witnessed it in every field manufacturing to Service Industry, the innovation story how it changed the world and the company.

It had been boon and bane to companies when they take the path of Innovation Examples:

 

The Below are few example where the innovation has swayed :

 

 Apple:

Apple when it started has not created what the customers wanted, they had taken what the customers needed,desired/expected made it the basic and finally designed something beyond these, it created it's customers. The US market was willing to own apple, it helped build the momentum and drive it. They had built a product that is now across the globe the gold standard. 

 

DELL:

Build your own Computer, this innovative way of making customers build their own computer is in itself a service Innovation, The core is what the consumer wants/demands but it is the Service of offering to build what he desires by Dell is what caught the imagination of the customers, something that was unthinkable.

 

While there are success stories, there are stories where innovation gone wrong and costed the companies, The examples of such tragedies are:

  

Ex:

Segway Inc, It has the self driven Balance Scooters as a product, the company failed miserably and lost a big deal, the product was innovative but the market was unwilling to spend that much for something that seemed not worthy.

 

DIVX, the concept was you could rent a CD for movies, see it for few days , you could either dispose the CD, else pay more and get access to few days see the CD 

 

By the History of Innovation and industry , we could always sense that innovation is driven by many principles,

• Few coming from the "Kano Model" itself, seeing what delights the consumers and going beyond
• Few from either adopting problem solving solution applied else where or solutions that totally change the face of the product
• Few are breakthrough innovations, by the R&D of the company or funded by the company

 

It is always a gamble to let innovation take precedence before the needs and desires of the Clients, however both are not necessary contrary to each other. The end line is we feel we have figured what the consumers want/desire and feel but eventually the conventional wisdom has proven this to wrong in many cases, and also to imagine that the consumers have the essence of what is better to them is not right , because it is not constant and changes from consumer to consumer and with the same consumer it changes with the time.

 

But the biggest and most successful and fast assented companies where driven by Innovations in their early life and progressed to a stage where they balance between innovation and meet the current likes/dislike of the consumers

 

So i side with the innovation  

Customer requirements broadly categorize into Needs ,Wants & Expectations,  Basically Needs & Wants are the minimum and fundamental requirements or features of the product / Service. When it comes to Expectation technology will play the vital role. there we need the innovative product and break though improvement to the existing status of the product/ service. that will create the " Wow" factor to the customer, this is the way organization will further engage their  customers with continuously offering with the new products .

Now a days customer doesn't know,w hat exactly their requirements in most of the cases, For a example  everyone is aware of how the mode of communication  changed over a period of time ( Land Line , wireless sets, basic mobile sets , Tabs  and now  smart phones, in this case  customer doesn't know what could be the next product and its features.. ) this is beyond his expectations and requirements.  Some extent needs and wants of the customer will play bigger role to design the concept and introduce the new product into the market, later  Innovation will play much bigger role to combine the other platform and futures into one single compact device.

 

This content reminds me of the different types of errors in hypothesis testing; type 1 and type 2.

Type 1 which is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when true(producer risk) while Type 2 is probability of rejecting the alternate hypothesis when it's true(consumer risk). Looking at both schools of thought, on the one hand the first school of thought chances that the development team will not satisfy his customer completely is high because customer s voice is vague and hence runs a risk of loosing her to competition on the other the producer runs a risk of wasting resources which the customer may or may not appreciate.

As easy as it is to fall on either sides, id say integrating both approches to deliver a complete and concise product for our customers will not only keep the customer happy but also give us(the company) an edge over our competitors. 

In my opinion, i would like to agree with the second option. When the people know 'what is in it for me' when we take their opinion. The acceptance of the product or success rate of the project increases. So, in my opinion, customer is king and the king makes the business successful. Therefore, second option is advisable.

In Every industry, a product/service produced/rendered by an Organisation/Service Provider is shaped either by the market trend or by the specific needs of the customer. However when it comes to the innovation in a product(or the design of a product)/service ,a question may arise as whether the innovation should necessarily  come as an offshoot of the customer needs/demands or the vendor/organisation (which produces/renders the product/service) will provide its customer, an innovative way of improving the product/service. More or less, the innovation is going to be a short in the arm for the customer, irrespective of whatever way it is being done and might give the customer an edge in that relevant industry, atleast most of the times.

 

Let us see now with some examples as how innovation happens due to customer needs & demands and how as a vendor/service provider, an organisation is providing the innovation, from its side, to its product/service and thereby help the customer achieve its objectives .

 

Case 1a : Innovation Done as needed by customer needs and demands.

Let us see some interesting examples. Let us take few sports which are being watched globally by many people - Cricket, Tennis , Football. Being a sports loving

nation, i assume the readers to have quite some idea on these games- though i assure everyone that am not going to take a deep dive on these games. 

Now we will see how innovations on these games were done because the need was felt by the playing nations/individuals (who are the key stakeholders).  
Cricket:
In the 1990s (during the advent of Satellite Television era), Cricket got televised a lot. As a result more spectators came to the cricket stadiums in many countries (where Cricket was played) and the TV viewership became high. Cricket became highly competitive and there was more stake for the playing nations. This is where many innovative changes, as necessitated by the needs of the cricket playing nations, were put in place. One of the very first change was the introduction of 'Third umpire'(a person who has technology support to see the match from various close angles to make the right decision) to make/pronounce hairline(too close to be decided by seeing from the naked eye) run-out decisions. This usage of technology innovation, gave the right verdict almost all the times except for the rarest of rare cases. This innovation was further taken for addressing some other aspects of the game as well. The second major innovation that happened was the ball-tracking mechanism. This was needed to decide whether a batsman/batswoman could be given out as "LBW" (a way of getting a batsman out). There is an associated innovation , called snickometer- which decided whether a batsman/batswoman had nicked the ball(assuming that the ball was caught legitimately (as per the cricketing rules) by an opponent fielder. The third innovation that the game has seen now was developed in this decade.There became an increasing scenario where the innovation made from the usage of

Third Umpire technology was insuffice. Even with multiple cameras with Zoom-in features, different angles, there were very tight hairline calls to be made in case of run-outs, stumpings. Replays shown through the use of these cameras produced inconclusive evidence. This is where LED displays were fitted into the Stumps.Now this had a telling effect. With the cameras and their angles, the LEDs emitted a colour (RED), whenever the bails got dislodged from the Cricket Stumps.This ensured that the

third Umpire gave the right verdict , by seeing whether the batsman was in the crease or not, at the time of the light emission. This way the third empire helped the on field umpire to provide the right decision. Ultimately Cricket becomes the winner as correct decisions are made because of these technological innovations.

 

Now who brought this innovation and why ? The Governing body of Cricket, the International Cricket Council(ICC), did this because the players of the cricket playing nations, the cricket boards of those nations wanted these changes to be done, as they had seen/felt the pain of getting wrong results, thereby even loosing Cricket matches at times.Hence these technological innovations were done, for the benefit of those, who play the game. Therefore those people were the initiators or responsible for these innovations to happen, in the game of Cricket.

Tennis: Hawk-Eye is one technology innovation which is there in the sport of Tennis for quite some time. When a person serves or when there is a rally(back and forth playing by the players standing across the tennis net) going on between two players and if the ball is declared OUt(ball going out of the established lines for

playing) by the Umpire, then the player who lost the point, challenges that decision. The Hawk-eye tracks the ball, with a simulation of where the ball would have landed and if it shows inside the established lines(say baseline,tramlines-ignore these jargons!!) then the Chair Umpire, reverses his/her original decision and

thereby the loser(of that point-in the first instance) gets either that point or that is replayed(depending on some other factors - which is irrelevant at this point). Now, how does this innovation has come. The Players of the game have been feeling the pinch, especially in Major tournaments(called the Grand Slams), where even single  point lost in this fashion, can make a difference between victory and defeat. The players' body, and top-ranked players saw the need for an improvement and as a result

of which the administrators of the game went ahead with this innovation and the result ensured an error-free(induced by human's limitation of sight-seeing of a high- speed object) tennis match.    

Football: Video Assistant Referral(VAR) is an innovation made in Football. It got debuted in this year's(2018) FIFA world cup. With that, referees were able to accurately decide whether the ball crossed the goal-line before a keeper or any other player could pull it back. This ensured that right scoreline was there for a

given match and ensured the outcome of a match was a fair play in terms of goals-scored. No controversial goal was allowed, even inadvertently. Obviously, all the current and past players across various football playing nations have seen/felt the impact of these issues and have been longing/hoping for a better state , on thisapsect. The FIFA brought this innovation to the game , keeping in mind the impact this can have for the outcome of a game, considering the huge fan following that this

game has. This has paid dividends now and the game is the winner.   

Thus we have seen how important and essential it is for the users/stakeholders (in this case) to portray their needs/demands so that the innovation made is done as per

the needs of the users.  

 

Case 1a : Innovation Done as needed by customer needs and demands - Here am going to give a conventional example.

Let us take the example of an imaginary retail customer. The customer wanted to improve her shop's reach(of selling products) to the outside world, by all means. The Service Provider(Vendor) created an enterprise web application and made it ready for use. End-Users of the web application were allowed to register their names and could buy their products of choice available. Once the products were added to their shopping cart, they made an online payment which was integrated with the shopping system. This was the first step that was in line with the customer's need of making his/her business spread across the globe. Next step of innovation was to design the application such that it catered to smart devices. The look and feel of the application remained the same irrespective of the application being accessed in a browser, smart phone devices or any hand-held devices . Now the vendor was to innovate further by introducing a custom app which could be downloaded using a mobile/smart phone.

devices . From this app, an end-user saw what products have been newly launched, what were the fast-moving products (to give a feel of frequently selling products to the end-users/ buyers) and so on.. The vendor was successfully able to innovate based on the customer needs/demands, in this case.    

Case 2: Innovation done by the Service Provider or the Vendor Organisation, based on its Own understanding/assessment of Customer needs/demands.
Do you really think , that a service provider or a vendor will be able to provide solution(s) to the needs of the customer based on its own analysis/assessment ? Yes ,

it could happen. I have seen, one of the media research company - doing data analytics for Media based folks-Advertising Agents, Television Serial directors,

Producers, and retail shops - who are it's customers and for whom, it provides relevant data which helps it's customers getting an edge over their competitors.

 

Another example is that Cloud Computing. Many IT customers do not know how to minimise the delivery related cost, infrastructure cost. The IT vendors provide various benefits implicitly knowing the needs of their customer by providing different cloud services to address their customer concerns, though there are aware Customers who explicitly also ask the Vendors for specific services (which is altogether another issue).

 

Taking some more intriguing examples, the DRDO (defence organisation of INDIA) provides the necessary innovation or right kind of ammunition to it's customers, the

Indian Army, the Union Government, based on its understanding of the needs of it's customers.  

 

Conclusion:
In general, innovation can be effective if a vendor or service provider knows the needs/demands of it's customer. The question is without knowing the pain point of the customer, how would your innovation be useful or powerful ? If it were not that much important, why a data driven and process oriented approach like Six Sigma should talk about the voice of the customer , getting the customer needs from various techniques liked focussed workshops, Questionnaire, Face-to-Face ,... and emphasis focus on techniques like Kano Model[Prioritization of needs (of the customer)]. The Whole approach is thought to be from a customer-centric perspective. So how can we do

innovation without explicitly knowing customer demands/expectations/needs ? The answer is that it can depend on the industry that we work or the amount of knowledge

that the Vendor/Service provider has, in any industry sector or in a specific unit in a given industry. Imagine an organisation working on Robotics. Assuming

Commercial Robots are allowed (means that Robots can be used by public - may be with some sort of regulation/compliance). Now that organisation would have innovated

based on its own understanding of the needs of its potential buyers(the public). The probable buyers of that Robots would be enquiring what the Robots are capable of, before they buy the Robots. This is a case of the vendor having more knowledge about the product, than the customer(consumer). Similarly, in retail, data analytics can be made and the vendor can provide a software as which items move quickly on which day of the week , for which the vendor can have that knowledge and the vendor

provides that innovation as a value add to it's customer.  Therefore , in reality, you may see that in many cases, the customer has to provide his/her needs/ demands

for an effective innovation by the Vendor/Service Provider. But in some cases, there could be also that the Vendor or Service Provider can provide the right innovation to multiply the business of it's customer.

 

I would like to say a customer can not express his desires unless you show something to him because his desires also comes from his needs, wants and expectations. 

For example a customer needs something for transportation he can demand anything but unless you will not show him like bike, car or anything he will not be able to express his desires, like in case of car he can say it should be safe, fats with good milage and can accommodate four to five people. 

Same case with service industry also like money transfer example, customer uses neft to transfer money but it takes more time. You have shown him to something by which he can transfer money now his desire comes to transfer very fast quick so banks nowadays gives facility for IMPS for quick transfer. Now someone not want to add even account no then also in some banks they have given facility to quick transfer within same bank like SBI. So unless we not give something to customer they will not be able to express their desire. 

Very aptly said – “Faster Horses!” 

 

This reminds me of the Nokia phones which we used to make calls “only calls & SMS” and nothing else.  Probably a survey for innovation from customers would have never ever imagined about the Android or the Touch screen.  

 

Customer needs, wants & Expectations can be surveyed, implemented for improvising a product or service. 

 

But that does not guarantee out of the box thinking like most of the products, technologies or even services that’s made available these days. 

I am with with Other School.

I my self is a ERP Consultant and ERP Implementer. Taking example from my own experience.

Whenever a innovation is done, needs and expectations are always taken care. But still there is always a scope of enhancement. As per Green Belt process," There is always a scope to refine a process". When I explain about ERP to users and management they use to have lots of question. But when they see actual product, then their 90% got covered. 10% is only left for new requirement and some process improvements.

Most of the time it should be from customer needs and expectations then only we can succeed in our innovation

I go with the second school of thought.  While customer experience definitely refines my product, the initialization has to come from my own creativity. 

Evolution of the telephone industry is an example.  Till people did not have the option they used other forms of communication spanning several centuries.  Once they had a basic telephone, it took only a few decades to come up with sophisticated telecommunication systems.  Similarly, for a long time, people were happy with wired telecommunication systems.  But once a basic mobile phone came onto being, it took less than a few years before smart phones started coming into the market.  

So once creativity places a basic model into the customers hand, the needs, wants and expectations shape it to be the best.

At the outset, the question looks quite easy and simple to answer. However, when one starts thinking more about it, one would find it quite complex. This is something that is often debated: DO WE CREATE A PRODUCT TO SATISFY THE NEED(S) OF THE CUSTOMER OR DO WE CREATE A NEED FOR THE PRODUCT? 

Essentially, any product should be developed/created to meet the needs of the customer; the point to be noted here is the existence of the need. As cited in the question above, do customers always know what they want? The answer would be quite simple: No.

While most products in the market are usually made to meet the customers' existing needs, there are also several products that the customers do not they need at all. Adequate research, innovative thinking and proper marketing, along with timing, play a key roll in the success of a product. I mention timing because there have been several products that were way ahead of their time and quite obviously were rejected by the people. To cite an example, I would like to talk about Western Electric Picturephone. Video calling is very popular these days. There are umpteen number of applications that people use for this purpose. But did you know that the concept of video calling goes back to the 60's? Western Electric introduced Picturephone in the market in 1970; people just didn't buy it. The product was a flop just because of bad(?) timing. Batter-powered car, and talking dolls are few more examples of the products that were innovative but failed to attract buyers.

Technological advancements have given scope to innovative products being made and introduced in the market these days. And, people, though there is no real need, are going for those products. 

 

On the other hand, products that customers really need, like food, clothing, etc.,  have always been in existence and will continue to be so forever.

 

To answer the question, I would go with a blend/hybrid of both the schools of thought. My needs should be met; on the other hand, I don't mind having some innovative product even if I don't need it. 

 

Imagine this: You are very hungry and food is being prepared; it is going to take a while before it is ready. What you need in this situation is food, which will satisfy your hunger, but wouldn't it be okay if you have a TV to watch or a mobile to play a game while you wait? A TV or a mobile that you actually don't need in that situation will help you take your mind of your problem - hunger.

 

 

 

It depends. Not all organisations have the risk appetite to introduce "breakthrough innovation" led products. For every successful startup, there are 99 others who failed. Hence, most organisations rely on "incremental innovation" led products that are the outcome of market research.

While I support first method where you have clarity of the product and the partner or customer dealing with, and also emphasis on delivering on time. 

However it also depends on which market you are dealing. 

If it is pharmaceutical then it is the 2nd method which is also referred as push  system, production begins based on the demand basis

If it is operations or logistics the first method holds good. 

This was definitely one of the tougher choices to make, however the response and the arguments provided by R Rajesh makes his answer as the best answer to the debate. There are numerous wonderful examples provided by all the respondents and it was enriching to read through so many view points. Answers provided by Vijay Sardana, Vishnukiran L S, Papi Reddy and Sitaram are a must read.

On 10/5/2018 at 12:22 PM, Vishwadeep Khatri said:

Q. 99  When it comes to designing an innovative product, there are two schools of thought.

 

One school believes in innovation that is based on customer needs, wants and expectations. 

The other school argues that the customer cannot express his desire unless you show something to him. A famous adage by Henry Ford is attributed to the second school of thought - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said - Faster Horses!.”

Which side of the debate do you find yourself? Explain with suitable examples. 

 

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• The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

VK when it comes to consumption ( where product is consumed like food / cosmetic )- customer know what they want .

 

But when it comes to , feel or experience a product  - customer is clue less on what he want .

Second school of thought is more relevant. Discovering the product and services that we deliver, and discovering the users that use our product and services are key part of product and services maturity journey. In the product and user discovery, we focus on understanding the life of users and figure out the ways in which our product and services can enable their life better. Many a times users would have found a alternate ways to use our product and services, which may not be the most optimal way. But easing those alternate way into optimal way so that the product can really help users in their life should be the focus for service provider. Building tons of features into product and service is so common, though we know users only use a fraction of features among them. Building good balance between usability for users, feasibility for builders and viability for the business is critical to establish a matured product and service.