CONSUMER AS INNOVATOR: A NEW WAY TO SOLVE PROBLEM
(Stefan Thomke and Eric von Hippel)
The Harvard business review journal made available in April 2012 is one which contains 9 different articles from various authors one of which is Customers as innovators: a new way to create value which was written and compiled by Stefan Thonke and Eric Von Hippel and can be found on R1214F of the journal. The authors had the intention of bringing to the attention of readers a model that companies in specific industries have created in order to meet their customers' expectations without incurring more cost. They see this form of Research and Development (R&D) as the way forward for companies who are having problems in dealing with both the general market and a small sect of the market who wants to make modifications to the product they want to buy from such companies.
In accomplishing this body of work, Thonke and Eric case studied;
Bush Boake Allen (BBA) a supplier of flavours to companies like nestlé
LSI a manufacturer of Custom Computer Chips
GE plastics who sell plastic products.
They claim that these different companies from different industries understood that the needs of customers is fully understood by the customers while the means of creating such needs lies with them (companies). In order to get a better understanding of the needs of the customers without having to go back and forth multiple times was to give the customers the ability to create their products by themselves. This prompted these companies to formulate a 'tool Kit' which helped them collate data from their customers. These data helped them improve their product, reduce the cost and time of creating the product. They further made comparison between both the traditional form of product development and using the toolkit form of product development.
Going through the article written by Thonke and Eric, we were introduced to how effective toolkit has been since it was introduced. Going by the case studies, toolkit and customer innovation has been in existence way before 1981. The use of side notes by the authors helped in passing important information without derailing from the main point of the article. However in my own opinion, the toolkit form of product development isn't for every company I say this because not all customer would be interested in creating their own custom product because of the time they would waste in creating one. The company can instead look out for the small sect of customers who are interested in creating their custom product allowing them to make use of the tool kit. Through this, the company can employ both the traditional and tool kit forms of product development. All in all, the body of work was well put down with only a little exemption.