We've noticed a common thread among many companies these days. When thinking about innovation - most seem to be heavily focused on providing incremental features and benefits as a cornerstone for their competitive advantage. What seems to elude many executive leaders is a lack of understanding that people do not buy products, they buy into meanings.
Maybe the reason for this is simply the physics of most organizations inhibits radical innovation and the competitive advantage that results. What matters the most to people is not the function of a product, but their emotional, psychological and cultural connection to what a product means to them. The key to sustained competitive advantage for companies is to innovate around meanings rather than function and performance. Radical Innovation does not happen when you bring people an incremental improvement of what they already know. Rather, radical innovation (and market leadership for that matter) is the result of 'proposing' an unexpected meaning. This meaning, unsolicited by user needs, once discovered, turns out to be the very thing people were waiting for!
There are countless examples of companies who have mastered this. Of
course, Apple is an easy one. And there are other compelling examples.
Back in the early 80's, Seiko and Casio were driving technological
innovation in quartz watches, believing people wanted technical
precision. However, a Swiss watchmaker realized people cared more about
self-expression than technical precision. Swatch was born and proved to
be a radical innovation of meaning that created radical market success.
While Seiko and Casio were closely observing user needs and existing
meanings, Swatch created new ones.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Blogging Innovation: Radical Innovation is a Proposal, Not a Product - Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights
Author: Thomson Dawson
