“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
But what happens when the going gets good? Rita McGrath via HBR reminds us that past success is not a guarantee of future profit. She’s right. It’s important (though all too common) for companies that experience success to be lulled by it as well. The once ubiquitous Nokia is scratching and clawing to remain relevant in the brave new iWorld (and as Rita states – RIM may not be far behind).
These two industry giants had once enjoyed immense popularity. But throughout the years, they started losing focus on delivering innovative products. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wrong. While it can be quite alluring to sit back and watch the profits roll in, that success won’t last. The only way to remain relevant is to augment existing products while innovating new ones. Innovation is tough, really tough, especially the market-disrupting, status-quo destroying kind. It’s important though to pay attention to your product and to continuously look for ways to improve or make it obsolete. If you don’t, someone else will.
One way to brainstorm ideas is to list the attributes of your product/service. List the materials, the pros, and the cons of each. By separating the material from the whole, you are able to critically analyze the product (hopefully without too much bias). It’s important here to listen to consumers but also to remain aware that they may not know what they really want. As consumers I think we tend to think in terms of incremental innovation. How can we make this specific product better? While that type of thinking leads to some advantages, it won’t bring market dominance. To create a game-changer, we as marketers, need to strive for the discontinuous, disruptive type.
Find the unmet needs and meet them. And just when we have that need met – you guessed it – time to start over. Head back to the top of this post for help with that!
Demand Generation Consulting 