The Center for Product Strategy & Innovation

It takes more than luck to conceptualize, design, manufacture and successfully market great products than consumers want. Yet people often don’t realize that innovation, which encompasses product development and business strategy, can be examined in a formalized manner—and it should be. Innovation not only provides future revenue streams for companies, but it defines a company’s future direction.

As important as innovation is to the bottom line, many companies struggle as they try to incorporate the concept into their business plans. Evidence shows that there is often a gap between R&D and market penetration. An effective innovation process should entail the creation of a value proposal that maintains a company’s uniqueness, uncover and fulfill customer needs, allocate resources, connect corporate strategies to product strategies, define and promote brands, transfer emerging technologies to practice and execute the creation of breakthrough products.

In the Center for Product Strategy and Innovation, projects are underway that will help companies address the challenges inherent with innovation and develop practical processes to meet their needs. Research within the center is quantitative and qualitative and explores a variety of topics, ranging from the exploration of the cognitive mechanisms of creative design to the development of industry trend models. The result is a scientific and practical understanding and implementation of innovation strategies. Faculty and students in the center work with corporate partners and this ensures that research efforts address real-world challenges.