Human Centrist Innovation

When you get a new product idea, do you think of the customers first or the technology first. There are two schools of thought, the first school says to build a great product, customers will follow and the second school says to find out what customers want and then build the product. If you are in the start-up world, statistics show that 90% of startups fail. The primary reason for the failure of startups is that there was no market need. So for an entrepreneur, it is very important to get the priorities right. Like the saying goes priority for real estate is Location, Location, Location. In the same way, for the start-up, the priority is customer need. Then comes the possibilities of technology for the product.

How to identify customer needs?

It is easier said than done. Luckily there are frameworks like design thinking which can help you do this. These are well-known design thinking tools, which will touch upon a few.

Customer journey mapping is the process by which we understand the customer lifestyle in close quarters and devise a product or solution to match the implicit needs of the customers. However, before we start customer journey mapping, we need to understand, who are our customers, what demographic they fall into, their lifestyle, and what are their spending patterns.

To give an example, Toyota's chief engineer had a challenge when designing Toyota Etios for India. Sedan space in the year 2006 was highly competitive. He and his team traveled to India and watched how Indians use the sedan car. Indians need to accommodate a fifth person, as we have extended families and may need to adjust an additional person or two in the car. Hence, the space to seat the fifth person was provided at the back. Luggage space was extremely important since Indians seldom travel light. Car was designed keeping these aspects in mind.

Empathy Map: Once you have the customer journey mapping done, the next step is the Empathy map. This is about how customers feel, hear, see and communicate. Empathy is feeling as one with the customer and understanding the reasons why they are behaving in such a way and unlike others.

In the book Hit Refresh, Satya Nadella talks about the importance of empathy. In a job interview, he was asked what you do if you find a baby on the road. Nadella replied he will call 911 as it was in the USA. The interviewer told him, you have to pick up the baby first for its safety as it’s on the road, before calling the police.

How Might We Statement: Framing the challenge in the form of a question rather than as a statement stimulate ideas on how we can solve this problem. Make sure not to include your solution in the question. “How might we” statement helps to narrow down the problem statement in a broad sense, but not too narrow thus impeding creativity.

For example, an engineer who likes to work on AI may create a problem statement “Create an AI-based customer support tool”. This statement is focused on using new technology rather than on customer needs. A better statement will be as “How might we help create a solution for customers by providing fast resolution to issues, by referring to the similar solution provided historically by the organization”.

Remember Customer is first always.