[Part 4/4] IoT Essential Truths: Rethink the Product Design Process

DID YOU MISS?:

IoT Essential Truth #1: Privacy and Security Must be a Top Priority

IoT Essential Truth #2: Share Data, Don’t Hoard It

IoT Essential Truth #3: Close the Loop

— Part 4 / 4 —

The jet turbine companies’ switch to leasing is a great example of the fourth, and interrelated, IoT Essential Truth: rethink products and their roles.

TRANSFORM THE PRODUCT DESIGN PROCESS

Because the manufacturer no longer needs to guess about whether the customer likes the product and how it’s being used, product design and refinement becomes a continuous process, so that GE and others can now push a product upgrade out the door more rapidly and increase the chance that customers will be satisfied.

Software now becomes a key component of products, especially in terms of maintenance and upgrades. Tesla’s response after a product recall because of issues with its suspension is a great example.

As Wired recounts: “Not to worry,” said Tesla, and completed the fix for its 29,222 vehicle owners via software update.

What’s more, this wasn’t the first time Tesla has used such updates to enhance the performance of its cars. Last year it changed the suspension settings to give the car more clearance at high speeds, due to issues that had surfaced in certain collisions. Even better, the upgrade was done automatically, overnight, without requiring customers to go to a dealer.

Changing our attitudes about products can mean exciting breakthroughs that were unimaginable in the recent past. Consider the example of BigBelly trash bins in Chapter 1 [from The Future Is Smart] and how they reinvented a traditionally mundane product. Also, because of designers capitalizing on the IoT’s disruptive power, products that once were costly and so large that they had to be located in a permanent facility are now affordable and can fit in a pocket.

PUTTING THE ESSENTIAL TRUTHS TO WORK

Don’t minimize the difficulty you’ll face in scuttling old attitudes such as linear processes that we’ve inherited from the nineteenth-century Industrial Age. They’re so ingrained in our subconscious that we’re not even aware how much they shape our thinking and restrict our vision and our ability to consider alternatives. However, abandon them we must, because we’ll never realize the IoT’s full potential for customer satisfaction, production precision, and new revenue streams if we don’t embrace the new attitudes—the Essential Truths—that the IoT entails.

Excerpted with permission from The Future is Smart: How Your Company Can Capitalize on the Internet of Things--and Win in a Connected Economy by W. David Stephenson, copyright W. David Stephenson.

Years ago, I released a product that I’d spent countless hours designing and perfecting. It was my baby, and I was confident it was going to exceed customer expectations. Though it wasn’t exactly cost-effective, I assured myself that the customers would think its benefits were worth the investment. Looking back, it’s easy to see that if I’d been willing to rethink my approach to its design, I likely would have ended up with a more affordable product and a much more successful outcome.

Share an example of one time where you incorporated customer feedback by joining the conversation below. Was rethinking the product design process part of the solution?