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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

August - 2008 - issue > Profiles in Innovation

Co-creation: Innovation Through Customer Cognition

Ash Tankha
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Ash Tankha
In a world with exponentially increasing sources of information, awareness campaigns, and widespread Internet access where the trigger for information is just a click away, today’s consumers are cognizant and well informed of the latest products and trends. Products are but an artifact around which compelling individual experiences are created. The customer’s freedom of experimentation with different products, product comparison, and discussion forums entitles him to be the best judge between good and great. Shortcomings and needs are best understood by the users, making them potential innovators. This capability of the customer as a potential innovator unveils an interminable repository of ideas, thus generating a new order of value addition for a company.

SoftJin has adopted a hybrid business model, whereby we have developed significant EDA IPs, which we license as customizable components along with our services. This allows us to work closely with customers addressing their unique problems that are not addressed by anyone else and do so in a relatively short time. -Nachiket Urdhwareshe, CEO, SoftJin Technologies

An effective innovation management system actuates this process of feedback and responses from customers. A wide-vista perspective through a diverse customer base, and implementation of these ideas towards innovation is the foundation of co-creation.

One can afford to ignore the feedback from customers only at one’s own peril, and this fact is not particular to our industry only! One should definitely be factoring in the feedback from customers in drawing technology and business roadmaps for the company. -Nachiket Urdhwareshe, CEO, SoftJin Technologies

3jam is constantly testing ideas with users and listening to feedback. We do live usability testing of all new product features. We bring in people that match our target demographic and behavioral user profile and then observe them using the products. It’s amazing how valuable this experience can be in improving the product. We also do online surveys and some live intercept interviews. For example, teenagers are the heaviest users of text messaging in the U.S., so we have often gone to the shopping mall to talk to teenagers about new features of 3jam and get their feedback. Finally, we solicit feedback from our users through online forms and email to help us drive and prioritize improvements to the product. -Thad White, VP, Products, 3jam


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