Common Product Development Problems – We don’t innovate. We just follow the competition.

One of the problems we often see in the product development world is a lack of innovation. Please don’t confuse innovation with creativity. William Coyne, senior vice president for R&D at 3M once put it: “Creativity is thinking of new and appropriate ideas whereas innovation is the successful implementation of those ideas within an organization. In other words creativity is the concept and innovation is the process.” Most companies are creative. Many do not innovate. Why?

There are many reasons that companies don’t innovate. But, three seem to stand out the most:
1. Money
2. Effort
3. R.O.I.

MONEY
It is much less costly to keep doing the same thing than it is to innovate. There is an understanding that innovation costs, among other things, money while marketing existing products doesn’t. The powers that be seem to say, “Why spend time, money, and resources to design, develop, and market an innovation when I can just keep marketing our existing products?”

EFFORT
Similar to money, it’s takes much less time, energy, and human resources (effort) to market an existing product than to design and develop a new innovation. Developing an innovation and bringing it to market takes a significant amount of time and effort. Many products may spend 2 years or more in development. In addition, some companies may not have the necessary human resources (designers, engineers, prototypers / model makers, and project managers to name a few) to develop an innovation.

R.O.I.
We live in a culture of immediate gratification. When we want something, we go get it, and we get frustrated if it doesn’t show up the next day. We almost instantly download music, videos, etc… from the internet. Americans rack up the balance on our credit cards because we don’t want to wait for things. We want them now. Immediate gratification runs through every aspect of our lives…including our work lives. So, it becomes a difficult proposition to ask the powers that be to invest significant time, money, and resources into a project that may take 2 or more years to launch, especially when they can get ‘immediate gratification’ by marketing existing products.

These, and many other factors, force companies to be reactive as opposed to proactive. Instead of being the market leader that the competition is chasing, the company defaults to following the competition. When the competition markets a new innovation, the company reacts, does what it can to try to maintain market share, then waits for the process to start again. Always reacting. Never leading. Never expanding.

Why is a lack of innovation a problem? Because it negatively affects your future. If you don’t innovate, you’re not controlling your future, and eventually your competition, who is innovating, will eliminate you. If you don’t innovate now, in two years, your company will be in the exact place it is right now – if not in a worse position. There will have been zero growth. In a product driven company, innovation is the biggest factor affecting the growth of the company. If the company wants to survive, if the company wants to become the market leader instead of the market follower, the company must invest in innovation.

Impulse Product Development is a team of experienced product development professionals based in Indianapolis, Indiana. We have helped many clients work through the challenges of innovation. If you would like to discuss the innovation challenges you’re facing, please contact us today.