Customer or User innovation is a recently coined terminology, although
it has been prevalent for long in a tacit manner. Customer
innovation goes one step ahead of market surveys as it involves
the customer in the whole innovation stream.
The essence of true innovation lies in
the fact that the resultant product enables
the customer to feel that the
product has been made for him alone,
thus achieving the exact functionality
of the product and providing real customer
satisfaction. This is possible
only with customer involvement. Just
as good strategic decisions in organizations
are made when more employees
participate, similar is the case
with the innovation decisions.
The user knows the product and the gaps
better. So, to fill in the usage and requirement
gap, the involvement of the
customer is indispensable. Though
the customer functionally is the end
of the product chain, it makes sense to
make him the origin of the chain and
consider his needs right from that
point.
According to Gil Hitch, former
President of Xerox’s Production Systems
Group, “Everything we do
begins and ends with the customer”.
Only when such a partnership is in
G
place, will customers be satisfied,
making the product successful. Companies
have started believing that the
success of a product lies in the success
of the customer using the product.
This has led customers to reinvent
their role and become the source
of knowledge and not just the recipient
of goods sold. Concisely, Customer
Innovation is investing in customer
relationship.
Customer innovation is more to
be seen in case of software programs,
games, etc. Cases of software companies
giving open source codes is not
something new. Companies like Lego
invited hackers to hack their OS in
developing ‘Mindstorms’, a build-ityourself
robot development system.
Ethical hacking is normally carried
out to check the security system and
whether there are any loopholes that
need to be plugged. |
