The Importance of Innovation and Meeting Customer Expectations
Where Is Innovation Needed?
Innovation is needed to adapt to a changing environment. As such, it is vital for businesses to keep up with market trends and customer needs.
Innovative ideas can come from a variety of sources. Some examples of innovations at the product or process level include the development of smartphones and Ford’s assembly line.
Needs Analysis
Conducting a training needs analysis is one of the first steps to building custom learning that’s aligned with company goals. But despite its importance, many teams skip this important process.
The goal of a needs assessment is to determine the root cause of performance gaps and find an appropriate solution. Often, this requires digging into the specifics of what’s happening on the front lines – for example, determining whether lack of knowledge is to blame for employee frustration rather than a shortage of staff or equipment.
Another important consideration is whether an innovation can be marketed effectively to make it desirable and feasible for consumers. For example, if your outdoor gear uses green technologies, you can highlight this in your marketing materials to appeal to nature-lovers and help build brand value. This is an example of a product-based type of innovation, which falls under Doblin’s 10 types of innovation. Other categories include process, channel, and value innovation.
Demographics
Innovation is necessary to create unique, distinctive products and services that make the business stand out from its competitors. This makes it possible to increase revenue and market share, which can lead to a reduction in costs.
Innovation can also help the company maintain its competitive advantage by improving existing processes and technologies. It can even enable the company to expand into new markets by developing new products or services that appeal to different segments of the population.
In some cases, innovations are sparked by unexpected events that present a clear and compelling opportunity. For example, the inventor of novocaine originally intended his nonaddictive narcotic to reduce pain during major surgical procedures like an amputation.
Innovation requires knowledge, ingenuity and focus. Companies should monitor the markets to identify areas that need innovative solutions. They should then develop and test ideas until they find one that offers the best value to customers. The best innovators work in well-defined fields.
Market Trends
The business environment changes at a rapid pace. This change can create a new market opportunity for an innovation that satisfies current customer needs or solves an industry problem. Using an innovative approach can help a company gain the advantage over competitors by being one of the first to react to an emerging trend.
The s-curve of revenue growth and decline is another reason for an innovation to be needed. The innovation of nylon stockings was a case in point, as women waited in line to purchase this new product that would hold up to the demands of daily life.
A successful innovation must be able to address both technology push and market pull. The former refers to the development of scientific or technological advances, while the latter refers to latent user demand and changing patterns of people’s lifestyles. The timeframe for these trends is also important in determining the scope of an innovation plan.
Customer Expectations
Whether explicit or implicit, customer expectations are a key driver for innovation. These are the “must-haves” that customers are seeking from your product or service, and may be influenced by their past experiences with you or your competitors.
While some skeptics argue that new products come from technological breakthroughs and not market trends, it is important to be both analytical and perceptual in evaluating market trends. Over-promotion bogs down brand credibility, while innovations that line up with critical customer needs give companies a competitive edge in penetrating new markets.
To meet customer expectations, businesses need to be fast at responding to feedback and releasing new products. Using a customer feedback tool can be an effective way to gather real-time data on customer expectations and use it to guide your business’s product development efforts. The result will be a more innovative product that will increase sales and brand image. The goal is to create an innovation that makes people say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”.