“Eureka!” moments rarely translate into breakthrough products. Fortunately, you can improve your chances by following a few steps:

Inventors often get too much credit in the process of innovation, says a recent white paper from stategy+business and Knowledge@Wharton. In actuality, product innovations are driven not only by people working in labs but also by marketing experts and, most significantly, customers. Thus, in order to produce groundbreaking products, companies have to stimulate the generation of ideas by these key people. Here’s how:

1) Avoid focusing too heavily on technology. Overly emphasizing particular product features can derail the creative process, says George Day, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. By concentrating on specific product attributes, Day observes, many companies fail to examine people’s emotional response and attachment to products. According to Kevin Dehoff, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton based in New York, real innovations stem from “understanding, engagement, and participation of direct customers coming together with some kind of a technology improvement.”

2) Expand engineers’ perspectives. According to a recent IEEE Spectrum article, companies can foster engineers’ creativity through various measures. For example, some are holding “innovation” workshops. Meanwhile, one expert suggests exposing engineers to different jobs. This way, they get to see other points of view. Additionally, some firms are encouraging engineers to devote time to brainstorming or to pursuing personal projects at work.

3) Make sure engineers and other employees are attuned to the market. Turning a blind eye to the market can seriously impair the process of innovation. One way you can bridge the gap between technical knowledge and customer insight is by setting up cross-functional teams, says Day from Wharton.

4) Consume what you’re selling. By using your own product, you will gain a much better understanding of your customers. You can begin to see what they value and what enhancements would benefit them the most, says Leslie H. Moeller, a Cleveland-based vice president of Booz Allen.

5) Be thorough with your market research. With product development cycles significantly shortened, it can be tempting for companies to breeze through market research. But that can be a costly misstep, says Yoram “Jerry” Wind, Wharton marketing professor. Take the time to get to know your customers. For example, Germany’s CLAAS KGaA, an agricultural equipment manufacturer, has set up model farms in each of its main markets. Farmers can go to these sites to try new machinery while company employees take notes on how customers are using the new equipment. Also, seek out two rich sources of information: former customers and local partners.

6) Set up your research and development operations close to your newest markets. Gone are the days when many U.S. companies would first launch a product domestically and then release a slightly modified version of it into other markets, says Jerry Wind. Now that new products are introduced simultaneously around the world, companies should establish research and development operations near these new markets to gain access to customers’ knowledge.

7) Explore the why’s of customer behavior. Digging deeper into what drives customers’ actions can provide rich opportunities for innovation. “The difference in deep understanding of what and why is the difference between understanding existing needs versus not-yet-realized needs,” Alexander Kandybin, a vice president at Booz Allen based in New York, tells strategy+business and Knowledge@Wharton. “And meeting not-realized needs is a lot more powerful than meeting existing needs.” Market researchers can use many tools, from metaphor elicitation to product attribute evaluations, to get at the why’s of customer behavior.

8) Be humble and curious. Finally, the success of your company’s innovation process can be fueled by two human traits–the humility to acknowledge that you may not completely understand your product’s marketplace value and the curiosity to keep on exploring customer needs.

Sources:

How Companies Turn Customers’ Big Ideas into Innovations
strategy+business, Knowledge@Wharton, January 12, 2005
[PDF] www.strategy-business.com/media/file/sb_kw_01-12-05.pdf

From Dilbert to Da Vinci
Susan Karlin
IEEE Spectrum, November 2004
www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/nov04/1104care.html