1. Introduction
“Design Driven Innovation” (Verganti, 2009) or “Design Inspired Innovation” (Utterback et al., 2006), a concept of design-oriented (or novel meaning oriented) product/service planning, is now widely recognized as one of the most competitive business creation approaches. This approach focuses concept oriented product development to bring a novel meaning into the product, as represented by iPod (Apple Inc.), Allesi’s kitchen wares (Allesi S.p.A.) and Wii (Nintendo Corp.). A unique product concept and a consistent strategy overcome various market barriers or technological obstacles. Indeed, iPod established a new virtual market for the music industry, Swatch turned watches into daily dress-up accessories from lifelong adornment and Wii intercalated a novel controller, which provides a completely fresh experience for users and expands game players to senior citizens.
Design driven innovation is not isolated from technology innovation, but includes interactions with technology. For example, Verganti(2009), analysing four cases (Wii of Nintendo Corp., Swatch, iPod of Apple Inc. and ST Micro Electronics), revealed that an industrial design feature unveils substantial value of technology innovation, and even in the high technology firm design is a core driver of technological breakthrough. These cases imply not only industrial design features contribute user’s cognition of the meaning of the technology innovation (see, Rindova and Petkova, 2007), but also designs formulate user needs, translate them into product concept and define a necessary technology innovation (Moody, 1980). To illustrate, an investigation of 44 innovative projects in British SMEs has revealed that commercially successful technological innovation proje...
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...igners, who create relatively high quantity of industrial designs (especially shapes), will contribute to the technological innovation.
Prior studies only touch the integration capability of designers, but they may also invent by themselves as long as they have technical knowledge. In some leading design-driven innovation cases, such as Dyson’s cyclone vacuum cleaner, core technologies are invented by product designers (in Dyson’s case, see James Dyson’s autobiography: Dyson, 2000). Consequently, we can also establish a further hypothesis by modifying hypothesis 1 as follows;
Hypothesis 2: In a modularized and user-interface-oriented industry, industrial designers, who create relatively high quantity of industrial designs, will contribute to the technological innovation by inventing some core technology for the realization of their product concept by themselves.
The Target Corporation prides itself on their department store roots with a constant obligation to great prices and stylish originality. The main focus of every Target store is the customer, whom the corporation refers to as a "guest", making them feel more personal. Each guest can expect to walk into a clean, organized, and easy to navigate store with "high quality, stylishly designed items plus all the essentials for his or her life".1 The company also has a significant focus on design. The company employs a "design for all" strategy that says great design is for everyone to enjoy, everyday. The product designers know how to create products you will "love to live with and low prices you can't live without".1 The commitment to design has become a key technique of attracting and keeping their shoppers coming back.
The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun completely changed the way I view creativity. I noticed that we all have creativity inside of us; it is by means of expressing our deepest desires and ideas that we display our creativity to others. Burkun destroys myth after myth about innovation, which had me ready to start inventing my first million dollar idea! Berkun outlines ways to tap into innovation and pulls from history to guide us into the future. His simple and common prose gave me courage to tackle the tough problems. I now feel as though I have a firm grasp on what it means to be an effective creator.
Leonard, D. & Rayport, J.F. (1997) “Spark innovation through empathic design” Harvard Business Review, November-December 1997.
Slater, S. (2005). Successful development and commercialization of technological innovation: Insights based on strategy type. The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 23(1), 26-33. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2005.00178.x/citedby
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. NY: Architectural Press, 1980, 2007. Massachusetts: NECSI Knowledge Press, 2004.
This review focuses on the research paper ‘Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms’ (Henderson and Clark, 1990). Radical and incremental innovations have long been the corner stone of which firms base their knowledge of technological innovations. However, the research paper serves to shed light on one of the less evident forms of innovation – Architectural Innovation. Architectural innovations are, as defined by Henderson and Clark, an innovation that change the way in which components of a product are linked together, while leaving the core design concepts untouched (Pg. 1, Para 5). In other words, architectural innovation destroys the usefulness of a firm’s architectural knowledge, but preserves the usefulness of its knowledge about individual product components. The paper argues that the inability of firms to identify and recognise new interactions between components has serious competitive consequences. The argument is exemplified in the photolithographic industry, where one after another, firms lost thei...
...f five people to generated new product ideas, among other tasks. One of their roles is to assist business units within 3M to generate new product ideas. They accomplish this by drawing up a plan to create ideas for products that will be marketable ten years in future. Once they have that plan in mind, they backtrack to the present year with new product ideas that are possible with today's technology. They then predict which additional products will be added year by year that will build upon each year's new technological advances to achieve their tenth year vision.
Today, advances in technology and design are providing many opportunities for new and existing businesses to re-invent themselves and their marketing strategies.
Wicked Problems in Design Thinking Author(s): Richard Buchanan Source: Design Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 5-21 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/
Within these eight stages, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more idea can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren’t linear; they occur simultaneously and can be repeated. Although design is always subject to personal taste, design thinkers share a common set of value the drive innovation: these value are meanly creativity, ambidextrous thinking, teamwork, and user focus curiosity (Owen, 1993).
emerging or new market. It can originate from new technology or new market opportunities (Eliashberg, J., Lilien, G. L., & Rao, V. R. 1997). Literature defines product development as exploiting an untapped market opportunity and turning it into a value product for customer satisfaction. Development and introduction of a new product requires extensive research on understanding customer needs, market structure, emerging trends and analysing the internal & external competitive market environments. To evaluate customer satisfaction previous researches provide strong relationship between customer satisfaction and product quality, product features and value for money. ***
With a near total saturation of the consumer electronics market, companies need to look beyond their boundaries and add value to their offerings, and sometimes it means total reinvention of the company.
Kelley,T. (2005, Oct.). The 10 faces of innovation. Fast Company, 74-77. Retrieved 6th March’ 2014 from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=9&sid=1d6a17b7-c5f7-4f00-bea4 db1d84cbef55%40sessionmgr10&hid=28&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=18386009
In the beginning lectures, I had no idea that brainstorming and conceptualizing an idea was part of an elaborate process to generate good product ideas. Great inspiration and a creative idea require deep thinking. I have learned that opportunity identification involves looking into the problems first rather than diving headfirst into the solution. Identifying and analyzing customer’s needs, market size, sustainability and scalability allows easy identification of low and high potential concepts. As stated in the article by Tim Brown (Brown, 2008), human-centric approach of innovation should be part of the design process as it gives insights into the life of an everyday person.
Innovation may be defined as exploiting new ideas leading to the creation of a new product, process or service. It is not just the invention of a new idea that is important, but it is actually