The future of the portfolio depends on the quality of the ideas gathered today. But gathering ideas isn't enough; the real challenge is making them comparable and ensuring none are lost. In corporate practices, this layer is designed as a continuously flowing innovation pipeline.
Scope
Multi-channel idea gathering: Sales representative, dealer, call center record, field service report, customer portal, employee recommendation, supplier recommendation, and market research.
Structured idea record: Instead of free text, include fields for target customer, problem solved, estimated market, similar products, and initial feasibility study.
Deduplication and aggregation: Identifying repetitions of the same need from different channels; the number of these repetitions is already an indicator of demand.
Preliminary screening and triage: Ideas are quickly screened, combined, or promoted to the concept stage using appropriate criteria.
Feedback loop: The result is communicated to the person who submitted the idea. If this doesn't happen, a second idea will never come.
In the real business world
In a manufacturing company, the most valuable product ideas often come from the field , not R&D: the technical service team repeatedly encountering the same fault, sales reporting the same feature being inquired about, the call center recording the same complaint. This information already exists in CRM, service, and call center systems; however, it doesn't reach product management.
In an integrated system, call center records, service reports, and sales opportunities can be directly linked to the idea pool. Thus, the "feature that is asked about 340 times a year" transforms from an intuition into data.
Benefit to the customer
Ideas are stored in the institution's memory, not in individuals' notebooks.
The number of customers making the same request is known numerically.
R&D prioritization is based on real demand.
Rejected ideas don't disappear; they can be reconsidered when circumstances change.