ssr2017 Incremental vs, racial: What's the future of produet innovation? | Design Counc! er ud Incremental vs. radical: What’s the future of product innovation? By Peter Fullagar Head of Innovation, Kinneir Dufort We recently announced the winners (//www.designcouncil.org.uk/news- opinion/design-council-spark-awards-150000-three-great-new-ideas) of our product innovation fund, Design Council Spark (//www.designcouncil.org.uk/projects/design-council-spark), so we thought it a good time to speak to Peter Fullagar, Head of Innovation at Kinneir Dufort (http://www.kinneirdufort.com/) and advisor to Design Council. Here he discusses the pros and cons of using both incremental and radical forms of product innovation. hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opinion/incremental-vs-adical-whal-sfuture-product-innovation 19sninsi2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council Designers have a choice. They can take existing tech and make current products incrementally better by enhancing everyday design - or take a radical approach and go for a complete overhaul of both concept and purpose. Both forms of innovation have their advantages and disadvantages. Incremental Finding big ideas in a crowded space Looking at an existing market or product and finding an opportunity to make an improvement to the way it looks or works is the bread and butter of design. For market leaders, it's a necessity to staying ahead, as design can be used to attract a new user group or differentiate a product by making it easier to use. Areally good example of a unique twist on an existing design is the Joseph Joseph Elevate collection (http://www.josephjoseph.com/en-us/collection/elevate/). They have built an empire on clever, yet simply designed, kitchen products. Their adaptation of everyday kitchen utensils has resulted in not only one innovative new product, but a whole family of them. © Joseph Joseph hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opinion/incremental-vs-adical-whal-sfuture-product-innovationssr2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council Joseph Joseph's simply designed spatula is a great improvement on the traditional spatula. The new Bouroullec Serif TV for Samsung (http: //www.samsung.com/global /seriftv/uk/design. html), love it or hate it, also adds a new layer of desirability to an existing product, by turning a generic flat screen TV into a piece of furniture. And Ayca Dundar, a Design Council Spark finalist (//www.designcouncil.org.uk/news- opinion/design-couneil-spark-awards-150000-three-great-new-ideas), has invented Pop Umbrella (http://www.r ik/students/ayca-dundar/), a retake on the traditional umbrella design by being flexible and less likely to break. The advantages of the incremental innovation process are threefold: 1. Staying competitive Every next generation product needs to compete, it’s a must. Products need to evolve to allow competition with the previous generation to roll on. 2. Ideas are easier to sell You are offering a recognisable product to an existing market, therefore it makes it so much easier to communicate and sell your big idea. 3. Affordability ‘The process of incremental production allows for affordable development. Products can be made better without breaking the bank. Of course there are disadvantages to the smaller, more prudent design innovations - getting noticed in a crowded and noisy marketplace being the toughest. There is the challenge of creating a genuinely differentiated, improved offering — the question to ask is: how different is it really? Also, brands are never alone. The competition is also playing the same game, for the very same reasons. The real opportunity in this process of innovation is for design to start with the need, not the solution. If you build your big ideas from the need, incremental innovations will follow. Radical hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opiionfinremental -adical-whal-sutureproductinnovationsninsi2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council Finding big ideas that make sense This approach is larger scale - it disrupts both context and purpose. It is changing the way we think and this can lead to the creation of new markets and industries. A great example of radical product innovation is the Pebble smart watch (https: //blog.getpebble.com/2015/09/23/timeround/). Bursting onto the market via Kickstarter in 2012, the technology and its application created a whole new category long before Apple joined in with the launch of their Apple Watch, three years later. ‘The Pebble smart watch is a truly radical, innovative product that created a whole new category of consumer. Another product innovator that follows the radical approach is Dyson (http://www.dyson.co.uk/). They have gone through the process of reinventing often overlooked categories of domestic appliances such as the vacuum and fan. They have delivered market disruption not only through technology, but also through their business model. So, what's the reward of radical innovation? 4. Bigger wins The chance of getting a ‘bigger win’ is one of the main advantages of radical innovation. hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opinion/incremental-vs~adical-whal-sfulure-product-innovationssr2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council 2. Ownability With an entirely innovative idea comes the chance to create a whole new brand and market - a market so untapped that a single design could gain a monopoly. 3. More open to new players The radical model suits new players far better, as they have no incumbent history which can restrain the breadth of their innovative design — they have a blank, limitless canvas. With Kickstarter allowing new and exciting inventors to launch into a large marketplace, radicals will continue to wow the world with products we don’t even know we need yet. However, timing is everything with radical product innovation. If timed well it can be the perfect fit, but if a product comes out too early then there is the chance people will just not get it, let alone want it yet. Technology is often underdeveloped, causing slow market adoption. Another consideration is that to develop the technology to match the potential of the product, substantial investment must be made. Radical innovation, as impulsive as its sounds, is in fact the longer game to play in terms of return. Markets can be slow to grow — when time framing and exploring an idea, this needs thinking about. exploration and subve: sion of existing product categories that are often overlooked can result in huge success — who wouldn't want to be the next Dyson? ‘The time has come. Designers have a choice to make ~ are you for the incremental approach, or are you a radical? Contact For more information please contact: ‘The Spark Team, Design Council spark, — (/about-us/our-team/the-spark-team) ctw Email: spark@designcouncil.org.uk (mailto:spark@designcouncil.org.uk) Tel: 0207 420 5200 (tel:0207 420 5200) Apply hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opinionfinremental -adical-whal-sutureproductinnovationssr2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council Find out more and apply to Design Council Spark. Join our mailing list Receive news and event updates from Design Council. Comments Given the questions at the end of Peter Fullagar’s piece, it would be unfortunate if readers came away thinking that innovation is for everyone *, and that incremental and radical innovation are mutually exclusive options. As viable radical solutions are rarely apparent at the start of initiatives, approaches taken ought to depend on the particular circumstances encountered. Clarifying context and purpose are not the same as seeking their disruption, and it could be argued that enlightened definitions of needs are more important as a foundation for radical, rather than incremental, innovation. Opportunities to innovate should be sought throughout an offering’s value chain, for aspects of experience such as delivery, servicing, upgrading and disposal may be ripe for such change. Moreover, incremental innovations in several aspects may actually amount to, and be perceived as, radical innovation in a new offering. Similar opportunities should be sought with services, processes and business models. hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opiionfinremental -adical-whal-sutureproductinnovationssr2017 hp www designcounci.org.uk/news-opinionfinremental Incremental vs, racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Counc! Another crucial aspect of innovation through design is to consider opportunities holistically as systems to be designed and experienced in a seamlessly integrated manner, across a range of circumstances. Smartness in choosing aspects to be encompassed by systems, and how such integration is achieved, often differentiates distinctively engaging solutions from the rest. Those tend to be considerably more difficult for rivals to outshine. The British Standard BS7000-1 (2008) Guide to Managing Innovation — highlights such insights. This UK world first, originally published in 1999, was based on state-of-the-art industrial design perspectives — rather than more dominant ones deriving from R&D, marketing, ete — that have since entered mainstream innovation practice. I commend it to readers. * Concluding points: Not all design leads to innovation, nor should it. However all innovations — bar none involve phases of design during their configuration and implementation / introduction to markets. -adical-whal-sutureproductinnovation 19sninsi2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council hp www designcouncil org. ukinews-opinion/incremental-vs-adicalwhal-ssninsi2017 Incremental vs. racial: What's the future of product innovation? | Design Council hp www designcouncil org. ukinews-opinion/incremental-vs-adicalwhal-s