You're faced with developing a new product. How do you choose between innovation and meeting market needs?

I have also noted that customer-centric innovation is also a great add on to assessing needs where you use customer feedback to drive innovation and ensure that new products or services address real needs.

There is a balance between pure innovation and market need which the best innovators and designers understand and work very hard to get right. Is innovation that does not resonate with our customers truly innovation? The best innovation (E.g., iPhone, cold brew coffee) exceeds market needs but gives us something we were not specifically looking for. We must have insights to meet your audience where they are while simultaneously pulling them forward. Our designs should have purpose and increase brand advocacy & loyalty. That said, there should always be a place in our organizations where "innovation for innovations sake" lives because if we do our job in moving the ball forward on each new product launch we will stay a little bit ahead.

Desenvolver um novo produto é um desafio empolgante! Para garantir o sucesso, é essencial entender as necessidades do mercado. Realize pesquisas de mercado, entrevistas com potenciais clientes e análise de concorrentes. Utilize questionários para coletar dados, crie protótipos e teste a usabilidade. Segmente o mercado e defina personas para direcionar seus esfor?os. Por fim, valide suas hipóteses com um MVP e ajuste conforme o feedback. Compreender o público-alvo e adaptar seu produto é a chave para se destacar!

If I'm developing my own product , surely I will make a deep market study for getting an idea of market trend for that particular product. And if I'm doing it for a customer I will have to develop the product with customer requirement.

Yes I agree with this. Bringing products to market that are helpful to what the people are experiencing in real life as well as hoping to enhance and even to become along with the current music, media, fantasy etc. All can be a huge factor in a product selling or not selling. Is it what people want or does it help them to feel good or closer to the picture of what they are wanting to become. Also is this new product helping them to enhance their current life or does it create the impression of doing so. I believe all of these things have to be considered to be honest whether it fits into the time period to is being brought into.. if this makes sense. We need new products out there not just modifications. These are harder to find though.

Absolutely! Studying market trends is crucial for any successful product launch. Here’s a structured approach to effectively analyze and leverage these trends: -Identify Key Trends -Analyze Competitors -Leverage Data Analytics -Create a Trend-Driven Product Development Strategy -Timing Your Launch -Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation However; By proactively studying and responding to trends, you can position your product effectively in the market, increasing its chances of success. Like a surfer waits for the perfect wave, timing, and alignment with market dynamics are key to a successful product launch.

Focusing on market trends in health and wellness. Timing your product launch to align with emerging consumer behaviors and technological advancements is crucial. Stay informed about industry developments such as telehealth, personalized medicine, and wearable technology. Monitor shifts in consumer preferences toward holistic and preventative care. By aligning your product development with these trends, you can enhance its chances of success. Understanding and anticipating these trends allows you to capitalize on the direction of the health and wellness market, ensuring your product meets current and future demands.

While it's important to understand trends that can affect your product useability or effectiveness, the design specifications should already include interfacing options for existing reporting methods or data storage methods, for example, if everyone stores their data in a particular database format, then customers are locked to it and that's part of your design specification. Sometimes it's ok to start your own trend though, if your product is unique and the funding can survive the extra ramp-up time required to train customers, especially if your output plays well with others.

Absolutely, I agree. Taking a step further from 'anticipating' trends such as the surfer and the big wave analogy as an excellent opportunity to 'launch' a product, we can further increase the 'value scope' of the product by preparing the product to offer more value after the wave has subsided. In other words, the product developer can somewhat create another wave of excitement to enhance customer retention. If this is not adopted as a strategy, users would lose interest in the product when the wave is over. The trick is to keep mimicking these waves via innovative user engagement.

The most sensible idea is usually the worst, the best competitive product to Coca Cola is not a better tasting larger cheaper drink that sense would say is what you need, it’s smaller, it’s expensive and tastes horrible.Its RedBull. So if your bringing a new product to an existing market you need to some times think 90degrees or more away from where the normal path looks to be. Challenge the market to think different and market to your new niche and create your own point of real difference.

Innovation is the lifeblood of product development, but it must be approached wisely. Think of it as an artist choosing the right colors for a masterpiece—you want to be bold but not reckless. Evaluate the risk and potential of new ideas by considering their feasibility and how they will differentiate your product from others. Remember, innovation doesn't always mean inventing something entirely new; it can also involve improving existing solutions in ways that add significant value. This approach ensures that your product stands out in the market while meeting consumer needs effectively.

Innovation is an art. Convert the technical/ non technical ideas into reality which provide benefits not only to business but also to the consumer. Plant based meat is one of an example which not only mimic the taste and texture of traditional meat but also address environmental and ethical concerns.

Once you have a clear idea of what you need to achieve, hunt around for existing products that can almost achieve what you need, and determine which path may be cheaper: 1) license in that tech and make it work for you, saving on development and testing time and on redesign iterations; 2) come up with an entirely new design which is unemcumbered by licensing, and most efficiently delivers your need with the least components and most efficient production, but taking on huge NRE fees and additional redesign iterations; 3) merge or acquire the tech you need to save on licensing fees and gain additional revenue streams to fund development. The preferred path may be a combination of these options, pending accounting assessments.

If innovation is the 'life blood' of any product then continuous improvement is the ’heart'. In a highly digital market such as we have today, to remain competitive, it is key to continuously innovate on your innovations so as to remain relevant. There is no 'chilling' in this market. Its dog eat dog!

Design for every feature you can think of, but deliver what the market needs now. It sounds like a conflict, but it's not. Plan for your product to survive on the market at least 5 years, and then you need to upgrade it or exapand its capabilities for the next 5 years, and so on. Market entry only needs to meet immediate market demand, to let you get on the market as soon as possible, with least failure modes, but your design needs to make it feasible to eventually evolve your product enough to deliver everything you can think of now. It is much more challenging to stay on the market if your product must be thrown out and completely reimagined every 5 years, better to have a flexible design to start with and to maintain branding.

O conceito do MVP é muito legal, mas é muito mais factível no mundo digital do que no mundo físico! N?o é impossível, já trouxe desenvolvimentos que trouxeram baixo investimento com uma proposta de valor interessante que aos poucos foram deixando de ser uma inova??o incremental, e passaram a virar o novo Baseline de produto a ser desenvolvido! O fato é que você tem menos margem de erro no mercado de produtos físicos, pois tem menos manobra de testes.

Sometimes it helps to establish strategic partnerships such that you will provide a customized version of your product or service to bolster a high-volume company in exchange for critical testing and feedback for product development, or key publications, or regulatory filings. A product manager should identify these key opinion leaders and establish mutually beneficial agreements to promote faster product sales and speed evolution.

Indeed. However, some products still fail even after implementing a solid customer feedback loop. I think the reason for this is the failure to define a target audience (niche).This should be clearly spelt out in the market segmentation of the product business plan. Therefore, before implementing a feedback process from users, first define who your product is developed for and target feedback from them.

Concordo totalmente! Precisamos incorporar esse mindset para garantir n?o só a cadência, mas a evolu??o do line-up! Marcas / categorias de produto que perdem a cadência literalmente come?am a perder a sua relevancia e tamanho de mercado. Era notório observar a queda de market share em categorias que perderam a cadência de inova??o, isso porque como qualquer mercado as tecnologias/ solu??es mudam! Eu entendo que um mercado como a indústria de eletrodomésticos que tem um nível de troca baixo pelo consumidor, é um playback n?o t?o baixo das plataformas, que n?o é necessário ter um investimento anual no mesmo line-up de produto! Mas quando a cadência é longa, a concorrência cresce e se abre espa?o no mercado. Mas ao mesmo temp

Yes. By doing the risk assessment it provides the visibility on challanges that could come in future. It will help to balance the business stability, keeping consumer trust.

Probably the most important part of the process in many ways. You want to be leading edge not bleeding edge in terms of product development. Depending on the product soft launches to a smaller target group are one of the best ways of ensuring you are practically managing risk. But not always feasible if you are a high R&D cost product.

Effective risk management is essential for successfully navigating the complexities of innovation and market conformity. Here’s a detailed approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating these risks: 1. Identify Risks 2. Assess Risks 3. Develop Mitigation Strategies 4. Balance Innovation and Market Demands 5. Financial Implications 6. Monitor and Review Therefore; By proactively managing risks associated with innovation and market conformity, you can create a structured approach that balances bold product development with prudent risk assessment.

The market isn't always open to innovation; it's crucial to push for it while having a backup plan. Not all customers will embrace the change

Giving the speed of customer’s response to product qualifications, the faster you foresee, evaluate and respond to this, the better. You’re engaged to endeless monitoring these change in preferences. Are you ready?