Design to Value for Emerging Markets

Emerging markets pose a challenge for product makers due to rapid change, heightened competition, and difficulty in understanding customer needs. Top companies challenge existing assumptions by shaking up their thinking, starting from scratch, and designing for manufacturability. To generate customer insights, collision workshops are helpful, bringing together suppliers, marketers, engineers, and other representatives. Discipline in identifying and prioritizing modifiable features is critical, focusing heavily on the most important one or two. Finally, product makers must design with emerging market customers in mind, tweaking products and processes to lower capital costs.