OVERVIEW & INNOVATION ACTIVITIES
New Concept Development at Philips discusses how Philips revamped its approach to innovation and new product development in the early 2000s. Philips has a long, proud history of providing radical new products—innovations like X-ray tubes, CDs, Compact Cassettes, and Ambilight TV—mostly fueled by Philips’ understanding of innovation and significant R&D investments. Yet in 2000 Philips encountered a substantial net loss and the company decided it needed to rejuvenate the Philips’ brand, and give its approach to innovation a face lift, by focusing on innovation driven by end-user insights.
Philips began its new journey with exploration. First, a vision team of four individuals was created with the goal of bringing inspirational ideas from the outside in. Second, they piloted a project for car headlights that combined the Dialogue Decision Process (DDP) and a design process based on socio-cultural insights. Third, Philips established the New Business Creation (NBC) group whose role was to challenge by asking simple questions and illicit “out of the box” development.
Philips’ exploratory projects led to the inception of the “Think the Lighting Future” (TTLF) project by the end of 2001. Along with a list of intangible goals, the TTLF was tasked with clarifying alternative scope definitions, defining two to three NBC projects, and defining a knowledge sharing process. From the onset, TTLF benefited from having the full support of senior management and pulling together a diverse team from all Lighting business groups. The use of cross-functional multidisciplinary teams and having top management support from concept through launch is key in successfully developing new products (Bessant & Tidd, 2011, p. 378-379). TTLF facilitated communication and set the project up as an extended DDP around the innovation dimensions of People,