the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
7, No. 1 - January 2007
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The
Sole of a New Machine
By Jeff Govendo
What
you’re looking at is a vacuum cleaner – two, really –
one for each foot.
It’s the new Dustmate, by that venerable Swedish manufacturer
of high end vacuums Electrolux. You vacuum while you walk around (I
know… with the Roomba robotic you don’t even have to walk,
but this one is practically guaranteed to go where you want it to).
The
Dustmate is one of a new generation of products to come out of Electrolux’s
Consumer Innovation Program, an initiative undertaken by the company
over the past 3 years in its quest to offer consumers appliances they
really love. It joins a new lineup of product offerings and prototypes
that includes a waterless clothes washer, a countertop “couples’”
dishwasher, a soft-sided refrigerator that folds up, and digital placemats
with changeable designs.
These
don’t sound like the kinds of things Electrolux – known
mostly for its highly competent, pricey and, well…stodgy vacuum
cleaners sold door-to-door – would be putting out. But in
2003, faced with falling market share and a rising flood of cheaply
produced appliances in Asia, CEO Hans Straberg decided they needed
to overhaul the company in order to survive.
He
tapped one of his division chiefs, Johan Hjertonsson, to lead an effort
to completely re-make the company and its products. In the past, this
would have been seen as an engineering problem, left largely to the
engineers to fix. Straberg and Hjertonsson realized, however, that
there were few household products better engineered than Electrolux’s.
The real problem was that the company didn’t know what consumers
wanted or needed.
So
Hjertonsson’s new approach contained two key elements missing
from those of previous years. First, development teams became truly
cross-functional rather than engineer-dominated. They now consist
of designers, engineers, marketers, salespeople and – you guessed
it – consumers.
Now, it’s gotten to the point where talking about the value of
cross-functionality evokes a big yawn. Everyone “knows”
how great it is to have diverse perspectives on a team, different
areas of expertise, and so on. Why, then, do I still hear so often
about such teams operating in name only? That when it comes to how
ideas are considered and decisions made, these cross-functional teams
are still apt to revert to their one-dimensional roots?
Perhaps
it’s because diversity can get a bit messy, with all those contradictory
views, non-linear thought paths and difficulties coming to consensus.
Yet, they seem to be saving Electrolux’s skin.
The
second element is the absolutely pivotal role the customer plays in
determining new products. Yet by Hjertonsson’s own admission,
“We never ask the consumer what they want. We do anthropology.
We study the consumer.” Central to this is the home visit, where
members of the team actually go and observe homemakers going about
their daily routines, looking for areas in which a new kind of solution
would make their day easier, more productive, or even more exciting.
It is not, however, about asking the homemaker whether they would
like this or that new feature on their appliance (think of the
look they’d have gotten if they asked, “Would you like to
wear your vacuum cleaner on your feet?”). Rather, it’s about
making inferences from what they observe and thinking expansively
about solutions that don’t currently exist in any form. True
breakthrough innovation begins in such imaginative space, but few
consumers would be able to articulate it directly.
Electrolux’s
re-organization has given new life to a company that was destined
to go the way of many other consumer brands we grew up with that no
longer exist.
So
the next time your Electrolux salesperson comes to the door, look
for some really cool stuff. And don’t worry about him tracking
in dirt from outside.
He
can easily walk it off.
