Given her role as director of innovation for E.J. Gallo Winery, you might expect Michele Sandoval’s field of vision to be limited to developing innovations around wine and spirits. But Gallo has successfully branched out beyond its core area of expertise, delivering innovative ideas and support to its regional community in areas that extend into education, medicine, and the arts.
Bringing innovation into an organization starts with coming up with those killer ideas that lead to meaningful business opportunities. Where does she turn when she’s looking for creative inspiration, and how does she decide which ideas are worth pursuing as an innovation opportunity? At February’s FEI Presents event, How to Identify the Next Big Opportunity, Sandoval shared some approaches that have contributed to her innovation team’s success.
探讨您的客户需求，兴趣和能力的现有差距
Having spent over 20 years of her career in the B2C world, Sandoval says her creative process starts with exploring potential opportunities from her customers’ point of view.
One way to do this is by mining your various insights channels for clues as to the issues consumers are currently prioritizing, the new trends and ideas they’re embracing, and specific areas where they’re seeking answers or assistance but are struggling to find it.
这些线索通常可以通过以下方法进行浮出水面：
- 挖掘可用搜索数据：除了关键字搜索外，您还可以查看在谷歌上的“人们也问”和“相关搜索”框中最常见的主题在您执行相关的关键字搜索时。
- 社交媒体监测：聆听社交媒体社区中发生的对话。消费者是否更常见于他们经历的特殊挑战？分享他们对新兴概念或问题的想法和意见？他们是否讨论了当前市场或文化条件，这对他们的生活产生了强烈影响？
- Talking to your organizational partners in sales, marketing, and customer service: These colleagues have a direct window into the lives of consumers and likely have helpful perspectives they can share, such as challenges that are coming up more frequently in their customer conversations, new product capabilities they’re inquiring about, or new use cases they’re discussing that indicate their needs may be evolving in a new direction.
- Researching general consumer trends: Are there new market conditions that are impacting their day to day lives? Are new social issues affecting their behaviors in certain ways? Is there a hot new technology that’s catching their interest or causing a shift in how they engage in their favorite activities?
谈到趋势时，Sandoval还建议超出您通常认为成为您业务的一部分的区域：“我开始[在宏观级别]，并寻找影响消费者的大趋势。是健康吗？定制？健康？这些信息在那里，你只需要花时间寻找它并梳理它，“她说。
Probe your customer experience
客户体验是在寻找可行的创新思想时的另一个焦点区域磨砂检查。在这里，思考您的客户目前与您的品牌交互的不同方式是有帮助的，他们希望改变或改善经验。
For instance, if customers are going online to share a new trick or technique they’re using to adapt one of your products to serve a different purpose, or are voicing their frustration with a particular limitation of your services, knowing what they have to say could reveal an opportunity for your business to add a new feature or develop a new configuration option, so customers don’t need to find their own workarounds.
If you give them a chance, those small ideas and iterations can even turn into bigger opportunities, such as the creation of a whole new business model or category.
桑多瓦尔指着一个现实的例子:For travelers who spent extended periods of time away from home, the inability to access a kitchen to cook their own meals was a known source of friction for hotels. Businesses like Airbnb capitalized on this insight and developed a product that enabled consumers to book short-term accommodations that provide all the comforts of home.
从其他类别看成功案例
Speaking of categories, Sandoval also notes that looking at innovations happening in other categories can be a great source of winning ideas you can apply to your own business environment.
“It could be something that you thought was fun and interesting. It could be a category that you just think is very innovative,” she says.
例如，由于消费者的认识到这些较低卡路里的配方可以是饮酒的更健康的替代品，掌声在过去几年里，我的团队已经注意到过去几年进入了过去几年的酗酒品牌进入硬塞尔塔尔空间。
Gallo开始寻找适用于自己的产品系列的类型的方式，并发现味道的闪亮葡萄酒硬Seltzers正在成为一个高增长的市场。该公司应用了洞察力，可以开发赤脚线路闪亮的葡萄酒Seltzers。
将您的愿景集中在可行的机会上
当然，想出思想只是创新方程的第一步。确定哪些想法具有最佳潜力，使其离开白板，并进入市场可能就像创新团队的艰巨一样。
在这里，Sandoval提出提前建立一些焦点标准有助于，根据您的业务最重要的是它运作的特定组织和市场条件。您可以通过商业优先级的镜头查看每个人来开始缩小您的想法列表，并按重要性排列它们，如：
- 我们的业务规模或可用的生产空间是这里的一个因素
- 成本或可用的团队资源会使某些想法过高吗？
- 这个想法是否会对我们的组织有益，或者我们的组织复杂性使得难以将这个想法发展成可行的可交付权？
- 这个想法是否有助于我们在竞争性环境中脱颖而出，或者是潜在的区别潜力最小？
- 我们是否对引起我们这一想法的消费者洞察力的力量是信心的？
- 这个想法是否与我们公司的愿景，使命和价值观达成协议？
- Is consumer perception of our business likely to be more positively or more negatively affected by this innovation?
- Does the required technology or capabilities for developing it currently exist within our organization?
- Do we have existing business partnerships that might help us get to market faster?
获得帮助将您最好的想法变成大型企业胜利
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About the author
Jodi Harris是Informa Connect的内容策略总监。在此职位之前，Jodi在娱乐，CPG，医疗保健，技术和生物技术行业以及机构和媒体品牌中花费了十年的发展中国家的内容计划，以及代理商和媒体品牌。在Twitter上跟随Jodi@Joderama。