Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Survey Reveals Product Innovations Don't Include Customer Ideas

Accept Corporation, a leader in product innovation management, announced survey results from two polls. The findings indicate a general inability of companies to translate customer ideas into product enhancements and innovation. This represents a significant lost opportunity for companies to develop and market products based on features that customers actually need and will pay for.

The first survey measured the ability within companies to translate customer ideas into strategically important products and features. The second survey measured the extent to which product ideas are collected from customers, partners and suppliers to determine how well the voice of the customer is being integrated within their products and features today.

Survey highlights:
-- 83 percent of respondents said fewer than 25% of customer ideas are translated into new products. This finding suggests that most companies today not only lack a consistent way to capture and prioritize strategically important ideas but are also unable to translate those ideas into requirements, resulting in better, more profitable products.

-- 41 percent of total respondents, and 45 percent of large organizations, said less than 50 percent of product ideas come from customers, partners and suppliers. This suggests that companies are still struggling when it comes to ensuring that their products and features are firmly based on the voice of the customer. Most product decisions today are made based on someone's favorite features, political arm-wrestling, or HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion).

More information can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

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