Based on the HRB article by Melissa Schilling, What’s Your Best Innovation Bet? July-Aug 2018
This is a very good article from my ‘go to’ source for innovation.
Its true that you never really know how a market will respond. Sadly, we leave too much to chance when creating products, sales and marketing plans and all the efforts associated with building something the public will desire.
Part of this article involves establishing 3 steps. Step One: Identify Key Dimensions
“Identifying the key dimensions of a technology’s progression is the first step in predicting its future” is a very smart place to start but I would add the following; Identifying customer segments based on desire, customer delight and placing revenue and profit for each, over time, will indicate where problems exist with the current and future product roadmap.
Tracing the technology should be tracing the “people evolution” in addition to the technology evolution. By focusing on people, in addition to product, we can see why people have certain desires and why not.
“To illustrate, let’s return to music-recording technology. Tracing its history reveals six dimensions that have been central to its development: desynchronization, cost, fidelity, music selection, portability, and customizability.” By appending psychometrics (personality traits) to customer segments, we can see how certain psychometrics attach to fidelity vs cost, music selection vs customization and so forth.
While current technology can survey well, problems exist with this method for predicting beyond a short runway. “Would consumers want an audio device that could sense and respond to their affect? If so, perhaps “anticipation of needs” is another key dimension.” It is.
Once we cluster what people want, we can improve prediction in a profound way. Simply put: focus on the customer and their desires, don’t average them but segment in a new way to predict what they want. Once connected to CRM, you have a powerful way to grow an organization and satisfy customers.