Two Approaches to Innovation

"We observe two approaches to innovation:

Aprospective logicwhere the search for areas of opportunity precedes the design of solutions (offers or products) which arrive later.

Apositioning approach, where the existence of a solution precedes the identification of a territory of opportunity. We have noted that these two logics coexist within the same company.

Prospective logic has the advantage of determining targets and associated areas of opportunity before committing significant resources to the search for solutions. But on the other hand, this logic takes time and requires adaptation along the way to changes in the market context, before the launch.

In the positioning process, we have the advantage of having existing solutions or solution bricks (patents or prototypes). This approach can therefore in theory lead to a fairly rapid launch schedule. But on the other hand, this approach does not at all guarantee the existence of opportunities or market needs. In other words, we have a solution, without knowing whether it meets a real market need.

In the support for innovation that Insightquest implements, our role is to help our clients manage these two complementary and at the same time contradictory logics.

• From a forward-looking perspective, our role is to help our clients identify the right areas of opportunity using insights – before they commit significant resources to developing solutions (products or services) and designing value propositions. And this, by ensuring during the innovation process that the opportunities initially identified remain relevant before the launch phase, particularly downstream, to prepare their communication brief.
• In a positioning approach, where the solution precedes the identification of the territory of opportunity our role is to protect marketers from a trap which is to read market needs in the sole light of the response that they already want to launch. Resisting the fantasy of a customer need that could in reality be different – ​​or quite simply not exist on certain projects, makes it possible to better allocate resources in the value chain by prioritizing solutions for which the areas of opportunity are really identified: i.e. the sized targets and the associated insights. Our approach allows us to better secure this type of launch."