The product search cone
A powerful tool to create new product and service ideas.
The PRODUCT SEARCH CONE is a powerful innovation tool we have created and developed to help our clients to structure their innovation process. With this tool, you will focus only on relevant new product and service ideas. You identify attractive search areas at the right level in your product portfolio and set up a highly efficient creative or systematic ideation process. The PS CONE has been successfully used to create innovations for international industries.
Natural process
As in biology where new species are created in an evolutionary process by a steady genetic change, new products and services can be created by “genetic manipulation”, ie by altering the most significant parameters of existing products. The PS CONE helps to steer the alterations in your present product lines and to create new ones in a systematic and natural way.
Efficiency
With the PS CONE, the top management and everybody involved in the company’s innovation process focus their resources only on areas, which are relevant to the company. The creative resources are allocated at the right level in your product programme and the idea search concentrates on directions very likely to bring about original innovations.
Simplicity
The use of the PS CONE is easy to understand for everybody at all levels in the organization. It’s a simple deployment, which requires only very little training. Thus, people who did not consider themselves as creative before, come up with very original ideas. Just follow the simple steps on the back…
Step 1
Situation analysis
Together we analyze your strategic situation. Which markets are attractive ? What technologies do you want to explore ? What is your competitive edge ? What are your unique patents, know-how and assets ?... We draw up your product programme and decide:
- at which level the product search has to be carried out: Business area level ? Product area level ? Product type level or Variant level ?
- the nature of your search area: What are the limits and prerequisites for the idea search? What factors cannot be changed? What are your unique building blocks?
Step 2
Find search parameters
Once the search area has been defined, parameters for exploring it have to be found. A search parameter gives the direction of
your search and helps you to easily find embryonic ideas to develop. We define the best search parameters for your product program. A watch brand looking for new product ideas at product type level could select “user groups” as search parameter. Most people will then be able to imagine the ideal wristwatch for a school teacher, a golf player, a nurse… Another search parameter could be materials (stone, wood, leather, plastics…), or functions (gps localisation, data storage, sound recording, heart rate monitoring, golf strokes…).
Examples of search parameters :
- user groups
- markets
- functions (principal, auxiliary)
- distribution channels
- materials
- areas of use
- product technologies
- ergonomics
- situations of use
- style (shape, colour, size)
- system integration
- life style
- environment and life-cycle
Step 3
Idea generation
New product ideas can be generated in many ways. If you just rely on intuition, your ideas may vary very little from each other and from existing concepts. With the PS CONE, we combine creative and systematic ideation methods, allow you to explore a very wide search area, and generate a high number of original ideas. The creative methods help to find surprisingly new approaches and concepts. The systematic methods assure an almost exhaustive exploration of the search area. …but don’t forget, once the idea exists, it doesn’t really matter how it was conceived. …but if you only have one idea, you can’t know if it is a good one! …therefore, stake on quantity!
Step 4
Concept development
Once you have selected a promising idea, then step down one level and explore the underlying search area. If your new Product Area idea is “wrist watches for golfers”, you can easily generate new Product Types by finding new search parameters and thus new product ideas. Now you know where you are heading, getting there becomes much easier! A new product or service concept is a large cluster of ideas, which have to be thoroughly selected and assessed. Keep on developing successful products and release your innovation power!