|
|
|
> Home
The Importance of Discovery in the Innovation Process
Signs of an economic downturn seem to dominate the news. One might think new product development would suffer as businesses begin to pull back and re-evaluate their spending at all levels of the organization. However, an effective innovation process is what lets companies recreate and change to sustain in even the toughest economic conditions. Discovery, the first stage in new product development, is a time to learn about what types of products may be successful in the future. Recent actions from Starbucks and Google provide a glimpse into how tough times allowed them to let innovation set them apart from the competition.
Starbucks Coffee
After more than a decade of sensational buzz, Starbucks is struggling nationwide as it faces slowing sales growth and increased competition. As the company grew and customer traffic increased, Starbucks expanded its food offerings while introducing efficiencies like automated espresso machines. In bringing back the man who built the chain, Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks listened to consumers and re-tooled for success.
Consumers told the company that what used to be a comfortable place to enjoy coffee was more like a fast-food restaurant experience. To many, Starbucks was that “third space” they could enjoy that’s not home and not work. This sets the stage for the development of an improved customer experience. Starbucks purchased innovative new espresso machines that were not only quieter, but also shorter so the baristas could interact with the customers while making their coffee. They also launched Pike Place Roast, a fresh roasted, fresh ground and fresh brewed coffee that is their “smoothest coffee ever” to compete with coffee offered at McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts. To make sure the in-store experience was what consumers remembered, Starbucks shut all 7,100 corporately owned stores on February 26th for three hours to retrain 135,000 employees.
The importance of listening to customers didn’t stop there. In March, Starbucks launched their own social-networking site, mystarbucksidea.com, where fans (and foes) could share stories, likes, dislikes and even make suggestions for future product enhancements. The website even allows others to vote on new product ideas they like best and watch their status change as corporate chosen ideas get marked as “under review” for future action. One idea that began appearing in stores last month was for “splash sticks” – plastic plugs for sip holes that keep the coffee from splashing out of the top of the lid.
Google
Today Google is the “world’s largest search engine” employing more than 16,000 employees in 40 offices worldwide. Their market share according to MediaMetrix is more than 62% of worldwide search views. However, competitive services offered by Yahoo have forced Google to examine how to get consumers to make Google their homepage. Enter Google’s culture of innovation – which relies on internal creativity as well as customer feedback.
Ideas at Google come from everywhere. Google engineers spend about 20% of their time working on projects outside their main job, encouraging them to build interesting ideas and future services. Employees also have an internal system where they can post new ideas and have others vote on how good or bad an idea they think it is. Even more impressive is Google Labs. This website posts products that are still being developed, but which consumers can “test drive” and give feedback as to what they would change. The advantage to this is any idea can get consumer feedback quickly, so Google can determine whether to further develop or morph into another concept. One product of this process is iGoogle.
Last year, Google launched iGoogle, a renamed and expanded version of their Google Personalized Homepage service. An iGoogle homepage gives users at-a-glance access to key information from Google and across the web. On this self-designed page, they can choose and organize content such as:
* Gmail messages
* Headlines from Google News and other top news sources
* Weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
* Bookmarks for quick access to their favorite sites from any computer
* Their own section with content found from across the web
This April, Google began offering users a choice of themes by professional artists to make the pages even more customizable. Google also adopted the iGoogle page as its general user start page.
It all starts with a process!
Findings from the Discovery stage of new product development are vital for the creation of breakthrough new products. Input from customers, consumers, competition, industry experts, employees and other resources can map out areas of opportunity for new product exploration. The Beef Innovations Group uses Discovery as a way to create new beef products that will meet the needs and wants of today’s consumer. For more information about how BIG can help you create with beef, contact Jim Ethridge, Director of New Product Industry Partnerships, at jethridge@beef.org.
|
|
|