These are the questions underlying decisions to fund innovative growth concepts. We answer these questions for or with your growth teams, using insights generated from analysis of the voices of customers you want to target.
A Roadmap to Success
With Market-Driven Innovation, we provide clients with the roadmap to profitable growth. Our roadmaps are based on a deep understanding of specific markets, customer needs, and their desired outcomes. The map starts with the market and ends with what you have to deliver to the market to generate revenue.
This market-back practice uses a set of well-defined tasks to identify, collect, analyze, and use what the market tells us to launch lucrative, new offerings. Its success depends on your organization’s culture, which is an outgrowth of the leadership’s mindset, the skillset employed by your organization, and the toolset you use to make success happen.
Businesses that practice Market-Driven Innovation build their organizations around the markets they have identified as best to serve. Market research provides the necessary understanding of the needs and desired outcomes of customers in targeted markets. It fuels strategic decisions to innovate products, services, technology platforms, positionings, and business models. Market-Driven Innovation improves value creation and value delivery, because your new product development is what your target customers will pay for.
What is Market-Driven Innovation?
To many businesses, innovation is a buzzword for new product development. Some businesses don’t refer to their product development effort anymore. Instead, they talk about their innovation work. However, much of their new product development is incremental and not really innovative.
Innovation is bringing forth significantly new or modified products, services, and/or processes. Innovation is bringing a new level of performance that goes beyond currently understood, articulated needs. Innovation generally implies something original or beyond the norm, and its impact is dramatic in terms of performance, comfort, and economy. Innovation can be in the form of a product or service. Most innovations are the result of a process that begins with an idea and proceeds to deliver results to markets either directly or as part of an existing or new delivery system.
Market-Driven Innovation requires a new leadership mindset, an operational skillset, and a definitive toolset. Without all three, an innovative opportunity often falls back on the realm of new product development practice. Leaders must make a decision about their willingness to invest resources into innovation. The change dynamics are intense, but the payback is usually huge.
Leading Market-Driven Innovation for Growth
Principles of Market-Driven Innovation
There are six basic principles of Market-Driven Innovation that enable innovation success:
Engineering/technical resourcing decisions
that are made based on a validated market opportunity and an attractive business case
Organizational focus
achieved from understanding application markets and targeting the most attractive segments for growth
A cross-functional team approach
where marketing and technical both contribute to the growth initiative, and thus are aligned on the strategy
Accelerated ramp-up
that occurs after launch from greater operational knowledge of the market
Technology development
that is accelerated because better design specifications are captured from a targeted market
Business leaders
who make resource allocation decisions consistent with the strategic direction of the business, and link development to the marketing process
As we examine these six principles, it becomes clear that Market-Driven Innovation is driven by getting everyone on the same page early on and by focusing on the work that needs to be done by everyone. The catalyst to bring the team together is the centric element of the market and the key customers who make the market real.
Learn more about Market-Driven Innovation.
Market-Driven Innovation: The Small Business Conundrum
Only half of small businesses survive more than five years, and further decays continue over time. The reasons are similar to those that cause mid-level and large firms to stagnate. But the small business has one advantage.
A Leading Market-Driven Innovation Mindset
Creating the right mindset begins with leadership behavior and that suggests that managers must examine how they lead and not how they manage.
Principles of Leading Market-Driven Innovation
Market-driven innovation is driven by getting everyone on the same page early on, and focusing on the work that needs to be done by everyone.
