Need driven innovation

What is need driven innovation
Need driven innovation is all about identifiyng and understanding the known as well as the latent needs amongst the users and use this knowledge to develop new products, processes and organisational structures.

Major campanies within the car industry and ICT who is in front on the international innovation arena is characterized exactly by being good at identifying latent user needs. These companies have an innovation process which is more driven by user needs than it is technology driven. Their activities are founded in a deep understanding of user needs. The term user denotes here any kind of stakeholder related to the area of focus.

Transfered to the health care sector this comprises everything from government bodies, health care organisations, doctors, specialists and other professions to patients and relatives. This varied group of stakeholders is an important reason why the health care sector have specific requirements regarding the conduction of innovation projects. Methods otherwise used in other areas thusly cannot be adopted directly to use in the health care sector. Testing, evaluation and modification of methods and tools used for innovation is therefore necessary.

Three factors for succeeding with need driven innovation:

• Identifying unmet user needs
• See a market potential
• Find technology/companies that can meet the actual needs and see how technology can be used in new ways.

Usefull links
Innovasjon Norge
The Research Counsil of Norway