Ideo Case Study
Case Study Analysis: IDEO Product Development
The business model for IDEO began as an open-minded place to design, develop and manufacture new products. The last 20 years of proven product design driven by innovation has translated into profit margins for their clients and continuous refinement for IDEO’s process. IDEO pioneered “concurrent engineering” where design and engineering work together to produce aesthetically pleasing products that are also highly functional. This was different from many other similar companies that placed more emphasis on the industrial design than the engineering. IDEO’s strengths grew out of the ability to master this ability with high tech clients. Corporations came to IDEO because they had a proven system of developing the best products through using their key ingredients for innovative strategy.
IDEO was riding on the success of the Palm Pilot, which at the time had become the fastest selling computer product ever. This was a marketplace with which they were familiar, having worked on the Newton handheld earlier fro Apple. The Newton was an example of a disruptive technology, but the need for a truly portable handheld computer could not outweigh the shortcomings of the technology or the value proposition in the marketplace. Working on these types of projects reinforced IDEO’s stature in the industry for not only producing award winning products but also leading consumers in to new ways of interfacing with technology.
The skill abilities of team members within IDEO reflect the company’s doctrine of open innovation and the benefit of assembling those diverse teams. From their clients IDEO assimilates best practices and then integrates these practices back into their own business and process. By this methodology IDEO is continually evolving and refining their process. Since the process of design cannot be bottled and typically varies from one client to the next a model of continuous improvement keeps IDEO on the cutting
The business model for IDEO began as an open-minded place to design, develop and manufacture new products. The last 20 years of proven product design driven by innovation has translated into profit margins for their clients and continuous refinement for IDEO’s process. IDEO pioneered “concurrent engineering” where design and engineering work together to produce aesthetically pleasing products that are also highly functional. This was different from many other similar companies that placed more emphasis on the industrial design than the engineering. IDEO’s strengths grew out of the ability to master this ability with high tech clients. Corporations came to IDEO because they had a proven system of developing the best products through using their key ingredients for innovative strategy.
IDEO was riding on the success of the Palm Pilot, which at the time had become the fastest selling computer product ever. This was a marketplace with which they were familiar, having worked on the Newton handheld earlier fro Apple. The Newton was an example of a disruptive technology, but the need for a truly portable handheld computer could not outweigh the shortcomings of the technology or the value proposition in the marketplace. Working on these types of projects reinforced IDEO’s stature in the industry for not only producing award winning products but also leading consumers in to new ways of interfacing with technology.
The skill abilities of team members within IDEO reflect the company’s doctrine of open innovation and the benefit of assembling those diverse teams. From their clients IDEO assimilates best practices and then integrates these practices back into their own business and process. By this methodology IDEO is continually evolving and refining their process. Since the process of design cannot be bottled and typically varies from one client to the next a model of continuous improvement keeps IDEO on the cutting