Developing Product and Business Innovations: Voice of the Customer Approach, Outcomes Strategies, and Beyond

Innovation involves the creation of new value. It is the “lifeblood” of startups and established firms. To be innovative, established and startup firms need to be able to create new value via its products and services that customer will want to use, and purchase. It is not just about coming up with new ideas, but rather new ideas and models that resonate with customers and effectively gain share in competitive markets. This paper focuses on several aspects that drive innovation. First, it examines the strategies that engage in established (“Red Ocean”), new (“Blue Ocean”), segmented, or cloned markets. Second, it discusses sustaining and disruptive approaches to innovation. Third, it explores approaches to gain customer insights into innovation. These include the voice-of-customer approach associated with sustaining innovation (product-based improvements to remain competitive in a dynamic marketplace) and the “outcomes-driven” (customer “Jobs-to-Do” and needs) innovation that supports both sustaining and disruptive innovation. Fourth, the paper delineates innovation strategies that can either leverage existing or pursue new technologic competencies (established and new), business models to create new value, or both parameters. Such interactions can lead to either routine, radical, disruptive, and architectural types of innovation.