At Diamond, we call this our outside-in approach. Instead of creating a product in a boardroom then surveying the end-user for feedback, we start with the end user first and work to uncover their unmet needs, strategically making products to solve their challenges and enhance their efficiency and agility.
We interact with our customer’s customers so we always understand how our product solutions deliver value throughout the entire value chain.
Working in the field allows us to collaboratively imagine opportunities, brainstorm solution ideas and identify the most attractive opportunities to pursue.
We strategically partner with facilities through formal engagements and/or site visits & tours. A critical practice for us is conducting customer discovery interviews, which helps us get to the root cause of pain points and uncover unknown or unimagined solutions.
Customer preference interviews helps us prioritize ideas and narrow the scope of our focus. We want to ensure that we are focusing on solutions our target market wants. We recognize that sometimes what customers want and what companies think they want can be two very different things.
From the data collected from the discovery and preference interviews, together with our market research, we create detailed product design objectives and understand and compare against current competitive products.
We separate brainstorming of “product development” from brainstorming of “technical manufacturing”. One is related to science, whereas the other is related to the customer. We analyze raw material, manufacturing processes, design & value engineering, quality, finishing, and manufacturing geography - all to maximize value to our customers.
The fun part. Product development turns into prototypes, try-storming sessions, pre-launch trials and commercialization into appropriate market segments through targeted launches.
