Improving Hombli's ability to Innovate by Design

Abstract

This report describes the results of a graduation project, which was completed at Hombli, a brand of Avanca International B.V. Hombli offers smart home products and has the ambition to become a leader in this domain. In order to achieve that the company wants to create Intellectual Property in the future and have a solid brand.

Hombli has two issues however
First of all Hombli’s current positioning risks losing its uniqueness. Competitors also claim to be simple to use, easy to install and safe.
Secondly, the way it currently creates new products is sensitive to being copied by competitors. Hombli imports products from China, adjusts them to their liking and integrates it into their ecosystem of devices. Many of these smart home products are also available to competitors, making it hard¬er for Hombli to stand out.

A question rises when looking at these obstacles:
How can Hombli become a household name and create I.P.?

To answer this question a two step approach is proposed:
First a future direction will be designed, resulting in a clear and differentiating brand story for Hombli.
Second a new way innovation process will be designed as well as improving the existing way of innovating.

By doing trend research and using the trend spotting method (Simonse, 2017), a future scenario is created. Summarized it resulted in the following: Because of an increase of people suffering from mental stress and the home becoming an even more prominent space in people’s lives, it makes sense for Hombli to facilitate well being at home.

Then the way the company currently innovates is analysed. The existing process which focusses on sourcing products has some disadvantages. Lack of communication, no prioritisation and confusion about responsibilities result in unnecessary slack in the process and in turn hinders innovation. This then also leaves even less room for any exploratory activities.

Principiles from the User Centered Design method from Abras, Maloney-Krichmar & Preece (2004) are used to redesign the current innovation process together with the employees that actually use it. During the weekly sessions the different stages of the process are discussed, altered and put to practice with actual products. The process is altered to become more like the Stage Gate innovation model from Cooper (2008). Advice is given on how to implement this in the organisation.

Then the process focusing on discovering new ideas is introduced. Throughout the steps assumptions regarding the product direction are validated. This is done through initially desk research, then interviews with target users and an individual co-creation session. The product idea that results from that session is put to the test using a Smoke Test (Cops, 2020). A method used often by start-ups to see if their value proposition gains traction. The results of this step are positive and give a green light for next iterations.
Then recommendations are given to further expand the proposed changes in the company to have a lasting positive effect in the future. Concluding, limitations of this research are also shared.