11.4. ROLE OF THE USER
Customers are increasingly being viewed as partners versus passive recipients in the innovation process. Customers can be included in the early stage of idea generation, and throughout the development process. Their input helps to make manifest barriers to diffusion as well as ways to surmount barriers, thus reducing the risk of innovation.
Finnish telecommunication giant Nokia solicits input from users to help refine existing product offerings, to broaden its customer segments, and to generate new ideas for offerings (Ewing, 2008). In an effort to encourage people to take advantage of the full capacity of their handsets, Nokia has used the Internet to test consumer reaction to products that are works in progress. For example, "Sports Tracker" was posted on a website open to the public. The product was originally targeted for use by runners and cyclists to use the GPS capabilities in phones to record work-out data such as speed, distance, and plot routes. A million people downloaded it and broadened its use to paragliding and motorcycle riding. Sports Tracker users also prompted Nokia to create online groups for photo sharing, which led to an even broader product concept called Life Tracker.
Nokia staff has traveled to the developing world and let people sketch their dream cell phones. One person included a sensor to monitor water quality.
Eric von Hippel is a major proponent of involving customers early on in the design of new offerings in industrial as well as consumer product companies, particularly those that serve markets with heterogeneous needs. Von Hippel (1988, p 107) notes that involving customers in the innovation process has several advantages:
The lengthy trial-and-error period in understanding detailed customer needs is shortened because trial and error is accomplished by the customer.
Small customer niches that are otherwise too expensive to serve can be reached.
Von Hippel (1978, p. 31) makes a strong case for the role the user plays in the innovation process and in technology transfer:
We have found that 60–80% of the products sampled in those industries [manufacturing process equipment or scientific instruments] were invented, prototyped, and utilized in the field by innovative users before they were offered commercially by equipment or instrument manufacturing firms.
In the case of scientific instruments, Von Hippel (1978, p. 12) states the following:
In 81% of all the innovation cases studied, we found that it was the user who perceived that an advance in instrumentation was required; invented the instrument; built a prototype; improved the prototype's value by applying it; and diffused detailed information on the value of the invention and how the prototype device might be replicated. Only when all these steps were completed did the manufacturer of the first commercially available instrument enter the innovation process. Typically, the manufacturer's contribution was to perform product engineering work which, while leaving the basic design and operating principles intact, improved reliability, convenience of operation, etc., and then to manufacture, market, and sell the improved product.
The implications of these findings are significant for some industries. Management strategies should be set up to discover and utilize user-developed innovations. The manufacturer's contribution to product engineering and to setting up the necessary facilities to manufacture and market the product are also significant. Issues of innovation ownership in terms of patent rights or trademarks need to be investigated before committing resources for manufacturing and marketing.
The idea of devising a "tool kit" for customers is central to von Hippel's thinking. For example, International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), which supplies specialty flavors to companies like Nestle and Unilever, has built a "tool kit" to enable customers to develop their own flavors, which IFF then scales up for their use. More specifically, IFF provides its customers with a database of flavor profiles, plus design rules required to assemble them into new or modified flavors. The customer is also provided with a machine that manufactures the sample in test quantities in minutes. After the customer designs a flavor on a computer screen, it is sent immediately to the machine, and the customer can test it and make changes in real time. IFF's intellectual property is protected because specific chemical formulations are not given out. Von Hippel provides a variety of other examples in which customers become partners in innovation from General Electric, 3M and the software industry.
In fast-moving high technology arenas, von Hippel suggests that partnering with lead users is wise. Lead users tend to face needs before the bulk of the marketplace encounters them, but which the larger market will eventually demand. Moreover, lead users are positioned to benefit significantly by obtaining a solution that satisfies those needs. A note of caution, however. Industry's emphasis on including users in innovation in general may mask the role of more fundamental research in breakthrough technology. Harryson (2008), for example, suggests that industry partnerships with university researchers are most effective in the exploratory creative phase of innovation, while lead users are best in the commercial exploitation phase, as they help in defining final applications and thus speed up commercialization.
The role of design and designers is increasingly important in making technology-based products user friendly and aesthetically pleasing to the customer. Apple has traditionally focused on the user interface and, with the iPod and iPhone, has demonstrated a mastery of aesthetic design and user friendliness that competitors try to mimic, often unsuccessfully. Electronics maker Bang and Olufsen also differentiates itself on the combination of technology and artistry. Design is not confined to consumer electronics. Technology-based products lauded in the annual International Design Excellence Awards include commercial and industrial equipment. Neither is design the purview of affluent customers in industrialized countries. The One Laptop Per Child computer incorporates design elements that make it resilient, but also approachable and entertaining for children who have never used a computer.
IDEO, a Silicon based valley company that partners with companies to design new products, has come to dominate this service niche. Along with business and technology considerations, IDEO factors in human behavior, needs, and preferences in its approach. "Human-centered design thinking—especially when it includes research based on direct observation—will capture unexpected insights and produce innovation that more precisely reflects what consumers want," (Brown, 2008, p. 90). At IDEO design thinkers are involved at the very start of the innovation process, before any direction has been set. These people can be drawn from conventional design backgrounds, as well as from new interdisciplinary academic programs that are emerging at universities.