Les techniques traditionnelles de génération d'idées, fondées sur les contributions de clients, consistent généralement à collecter de l'information sur des besoins en nouveaux produits à partir d'un ensemble de clients typiques ou alors choisis de façon aléatoire. L'approche faisant appel aux « utilisateurs pionniers » s'en démarque. Elle consiste à collecter des informations sur les besoins et les solutions émanant d'utilisateurs à la pointe des nouveautés sur le marché cible, ainsi qu'à partir de clients d'autres marchés rencontrant le même type de problématique mais plus accentuée. Cet article fait part d'une expérimentation naturelle conduite dans l'entreprise 3M, sur l'impact du processus de génération d'idées à l'aide d'utilisateurs pionniers (UP) comparé à des méthodes plus traditionnelles. 3M est renommé pour ses capacités d'innovation, nous trouvons d'ailleurs que le processus UP semble améliorer ces capacités. Les ventes annuelles du produit moyen financé généré par le projet UP chez 3M sont projetées de façon conservatrice à 146 millions de dollars après cinq ans (plus de huit fois supérieures aux prévisions de ventes des idées de produit générées à partir du projet « traditionnel »). Il est projeté que chaque projet UP financé créera une nouvelle gamme majeure de produit pour une division particulière de 3M. Il en découle que les divisions qui financent des idées de projet UP projettent leur meilleur taux de génération de gamme majeure de produit depuis les cinquante dernières années.
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