Jim Brown

One-to-One: Collective Customer Wisdom for Product Innovation: Accept Software
August 22, 2008

I had the chance to talk with ... Bryan Plug, President and CEO of Accept Software about their Innovation Management solution. The company is focusing on helping companies take advantage of the collective voice of customers (also known as "crowd sourcing") to drive product innovation. Accept's strategy is to help companies make sense of the vast amount of digital information available to them - and then leverage that knowledge to increase profitability through innovation. I have written in the past about companies' desire to drive "product innovation as a process" - what Accept is offering looks like a big step in the right direction.

What do they Do?
People are talking, and that knowledge is being captured. Whether the conversation is on a blog or other Internet forum, or whether they are talking to somebody inside the company, records of the conversations are becoming digital asserts. Social media - online communities that share and discuss ideas - are exploding on the Internet. Likewise, a more significant amount of customer interaction is being stored in enterprise systems such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management, which includes call center support) and SLM (Service Lifecycle Management) software. Wouldn't it be great if somebody could help mine that information and help drive products based on real customer needs? Sounds pretty compelling, given the amount of money that companies spend on focus groups and market research is only netting a small percentage of products that are considered successful in the market.

What do they Offer?
There are several legs to the solution that Accept offers. These include solutions to:

• Discover the voice of the market - which includes semantic data mining and analysis to capture input from the digital ecosystem of consumer information
• Engage the community - providing support to develop a forum if not already in place
• Capture ideas - to identify the potential products or features to bring to market for further consideration
• Process ideas - including aligning and prioritizing the product portfolio, part of Accept's historical strength

What secret sauce does Accept bring to the table? In conversations, it is clear that they understand that simply capturing more new ideas is not the end game. I speak with a lot of companies that describe their scenario as "we have lots of ideas - maybe too many - we just don't know which are the good ones." This is where crowdsourcing can really shine. Not only does Accept help to capture the ideas, they can analyze feedback on idea proposals. For example, if the market is asking for a feature like "instant on" in their conversations, that idea can be proposed back to the community for refinement and validation. Who likes the idea? Who is commenting on it? Are some people's ideas more accepted than others? It's this kind of knowledge that can help guide innovation. More ideas might be a good thing, but getting early validation and feedback on the ideas promises much greater value. 

Through automation, many more ideas can be tested with much larger communities than in traditional market research. There is still a difference between what people say they will do and what they will actually do - so I believe there will always be a place for direct interaction with people. But this concept promises to take advantage of the vast asset of customer knowledge currently being generated and turn it into actionable market knowledge tied to product strategy. Stay tuned, this can have a big impact on profitable product development.

Who do they Work with?
Accept is early in the rollout of this new technology, and working with a variety of companies. They tell me the industries that they serve best are those that require rapid innovation and where rapid is rewarded by higher margins - which I am sure most of you can relate to. The solution is not limited to any particular vertical industries, and Accept has been working with a number of high tech and medical device companies based on history. They are also working in CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) and Financial Services industries, which promises to be a sweet spot given the high demand for fresh new products in both industries.

How does this Fit in the Ecosystem?
I believe this offering fits in well with other innovation-oriented initiatives I have written about including Microsoft's Innovation Management Solution, OVO's view to "innovate on purpose" and Invention Machine. It can also act as a strong complement to a PLM solution.

I have included one of the graphics for Accept's website. It is their view on how the Innovation Process fits within the product innovation landscape - which I think is a good start at identifying the overall product innovation ecosystem.

So that's what I hear from Accept Software. I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them?

Posted by Jim Brown on August 22, 2008 | Comments (0)