Customer-Driven Innovation (HBR Article Collection)

Ninety percent of newly launched consumer products languish on store shelves. Why? Many companies develop supposedly innovative offerings by defining a statistically average customer "type" and then envisioning products that will satisfy that type. But human beings don't behave like statistical averages. So, most new offerings aren't meeting real people's needs. To correct the problem, innovate from real people's perspective--by determining what they want your products or services to do for them. For example, what jobs do they want to accomplish that you could make easier? U-Haul made the job of moving easier by developing prepackaged moving kits containing the right number and types of boxes required for each customer's move. Also, what outcomes do consumers want to generate? Medical-device maker Cordis discovered that cardiologists' desired outcomes included minimized recurrence of arterial blockage in patients. Cordis's resulting innovation--the artery stent--vaulted its stock price fivefold.