March 10th, 2014

Innovating Past the Customer: The Limits of Innovation

In our line of work, we often see companies which innovate past the point that customers need or will pay for. 

We have seen this phenomenon in almost every B2B product group.

The cause?  A mistaken belief or assumption that companies can compete only through continuous innovation which is translated as continuous product differentiation.  At a certain point this leads to product over-engineering – too many features, product bloat, unnecessary complexity, and product extensions which customers dislike.  Technology replaces common sense.