Understanding Demands & Needs of Customers

New Venture Design: Toothbrush Innovation !!!

In the last lecture of NVD the main topic of discussion was USER model. A company or person with an innovative idea should invest their time and money only in places where innovation is required or where an innovative idea is capable of making a significant benefit to the user who can later understand and relate to the how the innovation idea is suppose to help them. This idea should be feasible to the customers. The biggest challenge manufacturers face is that if they are manufacturing what the customers are demanding from them and this can only happen when the manufactures places themselves in the shoes of the customers asking themselves the same question that a customer can ask them. This called ‘Empathy’ and this a essential quality required for someone who wants to stand out in a crowd.

I came across this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk&feature=youtu.be
This video explains how a common man had understood what was problem faced at home and how he tried to solve it, not only for just his household but for the entire nation. I felt this was a good example of an innovative idea that was focused on the actual needs of the people. There was attempt of actual conversation between the manufacturer and consumers. The products the manufacturer was offering was as good as the others in the marker but at a very affordable prices.

Also we had tried innovating tooth-brush. My idea was that replacing toothbrush and instead use large chewing gums with the tooth-paste like liquid in the centre. The person using it will just have to pop one of this gum in the morning and keep doing what ever he/she is doing. This shall save 10 minutes of time in the lives of busy people who can take this chewing gum filled with jelly like in the centre on the move or in between doing something else. I believe in the fact of innovating the way for which the tooth-brushes are used.

New Venture Design 1

“Business has only two functions – Marketing and Innovation” Milan Kundera

Last session in NVD highlighted the importance of innovation. Innovation is another word used to say that there is a better way of doing something. In today’s global market there are many suppliers selling homogeneous products where the difference between products is hardly the packaging. Certain entrepreneurs just rely on marketing that allows their target markets to be easily captured by someone else with better marketing strategies. That is the reason that these suppliers should put efforts in their product’s R&D so they might improve on their existing product and compel customers on buying from them. It is not that marketing is not important but its not entirely reliable to conduct business. The best example of innovation and marketing is Apple. Not only they come out with innovative products but also how they can make people relate them to it by saying what the product is meant to do for the users………………………………………………………….