PayPal's ten-step process for customer-centric innovation
Conventional wisdom suggests that innovation typically begins with a great idea. But Akshay Krishnaiah, Global Product Head/Research Labs at PayPal, believes the process actually tracks back one step further.
"Why start with an idea?" he asked at the recent Mobile Innovation Summit, an event held by the Innovation Enterprise in San Francisco. "Maybe we should start with customer problems."
In the traditional model of innovation, or what Krishnaiah calls "iterative" innovation, companies resort to throwing ideas against the wall to see "what sticks" – and often, relatedly, put too much emphasis on...