Many businesses apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to innovation. Totally understandable, as it’s a complex area with lots of nuances. When working on our clients’ design strategies, we normally focus on three types:
Making small improvements to something that already exists. Think new sizes, new colours, new flavours or small functionality additions to your product. Step innovation is an opportunity for a manufacturer to fix small problems and add minor functionality to an existing product. Innovations like these aren’t usually communicated and happen behind the scenes.
The fundamentals of a product remain the same, but manufacturers add new features, functionality, and fresh styling. Like the annual unveiling of the latest iPhone handset upgrade.
Creating a completely new way of solving an audience’s problem. One of the outcomes of disruptive innovation is to change behaviour. Think Spotify. They took an existing problem – a lack of budget to purchase all the music we’d like to listen to – and found a new way to solve it. Before Spotify (back in the dark ages!), we bought CDs but could only listen to what we bought. Spotify’s licensing model meant people could listen to what they wanted, when they wanted, without the same constraints. And significantly – all within the same budget for the consumer.
Consider your projects planned for this year. What types of innovation do they represent?
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