In the Archives: Creating for the Consumer - navigating consumer needs with innovative solutions
Creative Building Blocks - essential mental constructs
In the Archives features articles written in the past where the presented views are in the context of the time it was written. This article was written in 2021-2022.
<TLDR>:
Successfully navigating and unifying consumer needs and the shaping of their wants is key to survival and development
Modular concepts stopped developing past the pre-fabrication phase
M.INT makes modularity from the consumer-end accessible
Innovation and profit do not always go hand-in-hand but they are not mutually exclusive
M.INT offers End-to-End modular systems, bringing the best of both traditional and modern modularity together through the use of a proprietary connecting system
Creating for the Consumer
In the previous article of this series, we touched on the compression of industry margins (especially for smaller companies), from large corporations through their use of simple-to-manufacture 3S Products (singular products of similar shapes with singular usages) and economies of scale. Consumers have been trained through generations to accept and normalise these products. To compete, firms now have to solve consumer’s expectations with intelligent design as a competitive edge — or risk being crushed under the market leader’s economic moat.
Consider the paradox:- Consumers trained to be solely receptive towards a familiar concept through generational conditioning, can only be sold and pursued through innovative solutions (intelligent design). The needs of the consumer has not changed: the functions of furniture and furnishings adheres to a template.The wants of the consumer are conditioned but are always malleable. Innovation is the catalyst to drive the wants of the consumer into a template that advantages the product of choice.
Successfully navigating and unifying consumer needs and the shaping of their wants is key to survival and development.
M.INT’s solution is to offer accessibility to true modularity and transformative furniture and furnishings, an innovation that sadly, stopped developing past the pre-fabrication phase. The needs of the consumer remains tracked to our lenses — the basic needs and functions of a piece of furniture forms the basis of our products, and through the innovation of reductive to additive designs, seek to shape the wants and ultimately, the psyche and trend.
The needs of the consumer has not changed: the functions of furniture and furnishings adheres to a template. The wants of the consumer are conditioned but are always malleable.
Balancing Act: Innovation vs Profit
The concept of modularity is studied throughout history but in so far, the extent of modularity in practicality binds itself to ridiculous constraints limited simply by the lack of innovative energies. When margins are thought to be tied to tradition, there is little motivation to innovate past the point of profitability.
Innovation Stasis Point
Identifying the innovation stasis point of the furniture and furnishing industry is simple: Products are singularly sourced and designs are limited with no unique selling points. Companies sell their goods through branding and regular business practices.
Innovation is usually expressed through the channel of aesthetics, where designers attempt to shape consumer wants to their advantage through sheer artistry. Identifying the innovation stasis point of modularity in the furniture and furnishing industry is simple as well although, the solution remains a challenge.
TRADITIONAL MODULARITY:
- a concept that is only thought and practiced from the vantage of a business/provider, involves the gathering of parts to make a whole; parts are prefabricated and pieced together to make a complete piece. -
Think lego, but only preconfigured pieces that cannot be re-configured that are made available to the consumer. A tragic thought. Of which many have tried to modernise the concept of modularity and sought to shift the concept where modularity is exposed not only to the business/provider but to the consumers themselves: a real lego set.
Modules w Connection Points
Modern modular products are well-meaning but ultimately, uninspiring. Products are pieced together through limited or non-essential connection points. Simply stacking or placing a module with a similar shape or look next to each other can scarcely call itself modular; they are but multiple singular units and not a whole.
Individual modules require points of connection that can piece together to form a singular unit with a singular purpose; when the whole, which has been connected together with multiple modules, are taken apart, the individual units perform their respective purposes. The modules can also be pieced together in a different configuration to serve yet another purpose.
It is difficult to conceive of a system that can serve as points of connections while maintaining aesthetic quality. Even when a solution has been provided, profit and margins becomes an issue: although not always the case, attractive designs typically equates to higher manufacturing cost. A connecting system only compounds on this issue.
End-to-End Modular Systems
Our response to the immortal debate of innovation vs profit is to have M.INT create end-to-end modular systems for consumers. Products that offers the ideal: Modularity straight from the consumer’s end, and products that offer a more traditional modular concept: offering tremendous cost-savings and versatility. These line of products are connected through the use of our proprietary connecting system echoed throughout our ecosystem.
With the surety of margins, innovation need not be sacrificed and market share can be won slowly and surely.
Connecting Articles:
Disruption at its Core: addressing consumer’s needs with intelligent design — Part 1
Signing off,
Ray
