Product & service ideation

Ideation is a critical component of new product and service innovation, but one that many companies get wrong. Good ideation pays dividends throughout the innovation lifecycle.

Why it Matters

Innovate more effectively.

Ideation is what most people think of first when they think of innovation, but it’s still not done effectively by many organizations. Research shows that pairing a design thinking mindset with a structured approach or process helps organizations get more out of their ideation in several ways:

Meet the right needs

Good ideation (and good innovation) starts with understanding the needs to be met. That’s why most design thinking processes start with building empathy for the user. Starting with an understanding of the stated and unstated needs translates to a much higher probability that ideated solutions will resonate with the end user they are intended to serve.

Produce better solutions

Good ideation not only requires starting with the needs to be addressed, but also bringing a broad base of possible solutions to meet those needs. Casting as wide a net as possible when it comes to ideation—through a mix of methods, perspectives, and participants—ultimately means the solutions that come out of the ideation process are more creative and higher quality.

Minimize waste

Good ideation somewhat counterintuitively minimizes waste in the innovation process by producing solutions that address the user needs they were intended to solve. That means fewer iteration cycles will be required, fewer product features will be built that fail to be adopted, and fewer resources will be wasted on solutions that fall flat.

How to be innovative: The innovation mindset

How to be innovative: The innovation mindset

To enable true innovation, we come alongside and ground our clients in this “creed” of innovation. With that, let’s dive into what we believe it takes to live out this creed and thus, truly...

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How We Can Help

Experience the difference.

At Credera, one of our core values is putting people first. We believe putting our clients’ interests, and those of their customers or users, at the heart of everything that we do is key to exceptional innovation. We call this the Credera Difference, and we invite you to hear directly from some of our clients about their experiences working with us.

When it comes to new product and service ideation, putting people first means two things: first, it means living out our claim to value diversity and authenticity, because those two characteristics enable us to generate a broad set of ideas. Second, it means keeping the user at the center of what we do, because doing so is imperative to producing solutions that will resonate in the marketplace.

Explore how we helped a U.S. military branch leverage innovation to drive recruiting success.
See how we used machine learning and augmented reality to better serve a leading athletic retailer’s customers.

Many companies miss out on large opportunities because they fail to see the value new technologies would bring to the company’s products, services, or experiences. What’s ironic is that, in many cases, we can validate the potential of these technologies in a matter of days, which helps companies understand whether or not they would create value for the company or its customers.

Jake Carter

Partner and Chief Innovation Officer, Credera

Offerings

Find your next products and services.

We help our clients run the ideation process more effectively (and actively engage with them), so they can uncover their organization’s next promising products or services.

Exploratory research

Uncover the user insights necessary to feed the ideation process using a mix of research methods.

Design sprints

Go from problem area to product prototype over four intense days as a jump-start to the innovation process.

Explore Further

Concept prototyping

Create low- or high-fidelity prototypes of new products or services to test concepts with users and stakeholders.

Service design

Map the end-to-end process of providing a service, both what is visible to the user and what is hidden, to identify improvement opportunities.

AI opportunity workshops

Identify opportunities to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create new products or services or enhance existing offerings.

Our Experts

Leaders across industry and expertise.

Adopting our people-first approach, our team of experts takes a holistic approach to product development and keeps the customer at the center of everything we do.