Product Innovation Isn’t About Data Collection, But Analysis Of A Brand’s “Mission”

Clayton Christensen’s book “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice” criticizes a prevailing mindset in product innovation that relies on over-segmentation of markets, and accumulation of scads of data at the expense of theoretical models. Innovation, he argues, should not be “hit-or-miss” and incremental. It should be guided by purpose and “a clear vision of a job to be done” in the real world. It should be based on a thorough analysis of what the customer is “hiring” the product to do. The mountains of retrospective data do nothing to help companies come up with an innovative breakthrough -- a new idea of a brand’s mission in the real world that ensures long-term, sustainable growth.