How Important is Customer-Centric Innovation?

"What is best for the customers is best for the business."

How true is this statement? Most companies fail to hit their innovation targets for one simple reason: they lack the customer intelligence they need to make winning decisions. The challenge facing innovators is to find the most valuable feedback and to integrate that feedback, at the speed of business, into the innovation cycle.

Chances are, if you’re launching a new product today, it’ll fail. Roughly 85 percent of CPG products fail, according to Nielsen data. Another estimate, from Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, claims that 95 percent of consumer products fail.

Innovation refers to a new idea or methodology and not just means or practice to please yourself with something you think is innovative. Innovation which is not directed towards solving of problems of people in need that is your customers will gain you no value, neither in terms of money nor satisfaction.

Addressing the needs of your customers is the core factor of managing innovation successfully. It is essential for front line employees to be at the center of the customer R&D process. No matter how amazing your idea is, no matter what latest technology you are integrating, no matter how much efforts you put it, it will all be in vain if customers do not pay you for it!

The more customer-centric you are, the longer it takes your competitors to figure out your game.

Customer-centric innovation revolves around customers and their needs and not just their wants. The process starts with insights on customer needs with the goal of designing a new product or service that delivers on these needs in a way that is intuitive and accessible to customers. Customer-centric innovations focuses on finding the pain areas for the customers and deriving solutions to solve their problems.

Customer-centric innovation is nothing but creating earning opportunities by systematically analyzing the problems of your customers and solving them!