Outside Innovation: How your customers will Co-Design your Company's Future by Patricia
B. Seybold
(Harper
Collins Publishers, NY-USA, 2006)
Open innovation, co-design, crowd sourcing... I have always been hunting down books that talk about these topics. This book covers all these concepts and even more.
With the advent of the internet age, there has been a fundamental shift in power that has put the customers in the driver's seat. With a plethora of choices and access to information at their fingertips, customers are now able to compare your company's products, prices, features and demand what they exactly want. Generic products are no longer what they seek. Customization is the new norm. Even though companies understand this change and research consumers and their needs, most face challenges in implementing what the consumers exactly want. Patricia Seybold has the answer - co-innovate! Seybold explains why companies today win by not just hiring the smartest talent, but they win by engaging with the smartest consumer.
Through case-studies from companies such as LEGO, Hallmark and Staples, Seybold walks the reader through the process of co-innovation. She talks about how many companies already engage directly with their "lead users" (customers who are passionate about the products) and their ideas to co-design solutions that will better meet their own (customer's) needs. The author talks about how “eBay created a new industry by enabling sellers to find buyers” and "Dell made build-to-order standard operating procedure" through co-innovation. She discusses how these companies succeeded not by just creating a generic product out of R&D. They won by co-creating with their customers.
Interesting read!
