Driving the process to develop a new product vision into a final solution delivering value to customers is a process more likely to fail than succeed. According to Wikipedia, “Research findings vary: From fifty- to ninety-percent of innovation projects are judged to have made little or no contribution to organizational goals.”
An approach gaining momentum to increase the customer value created and the success rate of product development is to combine open innovation with external product prototyping. This model expands the internal team’s access to new ideas from a broad pool of technologies and design concepts from other industries.
For example, a global food products company acquired a manufacturing solution from the automotive industry that dramatically reduced product defects and a home appliance manufacturer acquired a dispensing technology from a food vending machine manufacturer.
Similarly, an external product prototyping team brought the convenience and cleanliness of home detergent pour spouts and closure solutions to the paint can famous for spills and wasted product.
One thing is clear; a more holistic approach to product development is needed in order to achieve increasingly aggressive organizational goals for growth and profitability.