Unlocking the One Trillion-Dollar Sustainable Innovation Opportunity

Last week Unilever announced research showing that one-third of consumers now purchase its brands based on their good social and environmental performance, but went on to suggest that brands are missing an opportunity from not promoting sustainability effectively. Getting this right could unlock a further $1trn market opportunity for sustainability innovators.

The Big Book of Customer Insight, Data & Analytics

Customer insight, data & analytics have become an integral part of customer experience. With constantly rising customer expectations and an increasing demand for a quicker service, more channel choice and a highly personalised interaction, the only way you can achieve all three of these and ensure you’re providing an excellent CX is by truly knowing your customers.

Working the Crowd – Don’t Get Lost

Utilising crowd led approaches to create value is increasingly familiar in both the literature of business comment and reporting and through our own experience. Crowdassets, as we refer to them, represent a profound and enduring source of innovation and we must adapt and respond to this opportunity. In the fourth of a series of articles focused on Innovation Culture, we are going to provide a more holistic view of the concepts as well as the means to embrace the growing opportunities presented by the crowd empowered ecosystem.

Should I Talk About My Co-creation Partners?

Research and practice have investigated firms’ benefits of co-creation with external stakeholders, such as more creative ideas, reduced development costs, and improved product quality. However, little is known about how consumers perceive products and their firms that communicate about such co-creation activities. Using two experimental studies, we investigated how consumers’ knowledge about the involvement of different types of stakeholders during the innovation process changes the adoption of new products.

Using Global Insights to Drive Local Innovation

“Innovation” has become yet another buzz-word, used overwhelmingly by organizations to distinguish themselves from competitors. This article explores one strategy that local champions can use to be more innovative in their local markets: scan the globe for trends and insights and generate insights and ideas that can be adapted to drive innovation at the local market level.

Silence the Voice of the Customer

Innovation is successful when it targets customers’ needs, but how sure can we be that this is something we can predict effectively? In this article Tony Ulwick argues that the traditional voice of the customer methodology is the wrong tool to determine customer needs. Tony presents an alternative methodology that makes it possible to determine all the needs of a given customer group.

Be an A-Tension Seeker: Why Good Ideas Stem from Irritating Problems?

All too often we see companies coming to us with a new technological advancement that they are very excited about. Sadly, having a new technology does not guarantee a winning innovation. One needs to work hard at the front end to understand what the consumer needs and how the current market offer isn’t meeting those needs. Only against this backdrop can we hope to bring an idea to market that will be truly disruptive. The following article explains.

Part 2: The Market for Mass Customization Today

As NetNatives become consumers and buyers are "trained" by personalized offerings, the market is finally ripe for mass customization. In part two of this special series focusing on mass customization, Professors Frank Piller and Dominik Walcher take a closer look at what the current market has to offer and provide their conclusions after observing 500 leaders in the field from a customer perspective.

Innovation Through Co-creation: Consumers Can be Creative

A new trend in business and product development is ‘co-creation’. By its very name it implies a collaboration between the company and some other entity. In this case it is the consumer who partners in the creation of value. The term ‘co-creation’ is not new, however, but is now receiving more attention - driven largely through the increasing use of the Internet and social media websites - as companies endeavour to differentiate themselves from the competition.

How to Understand the Notoriously Irrational Consumer

Companies put in lots of Market Research efforts to nail down the needs, wants, wishes and whims of the elusive consumers. But, how reliable are the results? Are there logical – or illogical – reasons why consumers sometimes say one thing and still do the other? In this blog, Bengt Järrehult uses the findings of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate in Economy 2002 to understand more of this in the area of innovation.

Don’t let Market Research Myopia Distract you from Innovation

Customer and market research, competitive benchmarking, and focusing on market share could be detrimental to your organization's future performance. These approaches are critical improvement tools. Top performing organizations have turned them into a disciplined and useful science. But they can also lead to "me-too" followership or - even worse - commodity products and services that compete only on price.

Innovation’s Silent Killer

If they want to compete successfully in the future, companies should hold off on rapid ideation and faster commercialization until they take an unflinching look at what is truly stifling breakthrough innovation. In this article, Soren Kristensen provides insight on how honest self-reflection can free you from your biggest impediment to growth.

Asking the Important Questions: A Guide to Design Thinking And a Better Way to Serve Customers

Design thinking should be a way of life for senior managers. Melba Kurman spoke to Sara Beckman, design and innovation expert at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, about how to apply design thinking to the innovation process.