The Consumer Insights and Business Innovation Center (CiBiC) seeks to use consumer insights for effective innovation prior to launching new products and services.
Releasing a new product or service can go one of two ways: success or failure. If there’s one thing that many entrepreneurs want, it’s to be able to gauge how well their new initiative will be received by the public prior to its debut. The Daniels College of Business’s Consumer Insights and Business Innovation Center (CiBiC) enables faculty, students and organizations to test out their endeavors in order to see how well it can perform before launching, which allows them to make their wares as effective as possible. After watching a particularly cringe-worthy episode of Shark Tank, it makes you wish that all entrepreneurs had access to this type of test environment.
Can you believe this venture failed? Wouldn’t it have been nice for this couple to gain insight on how well a stuffed elephant in a box could act as a substitute for a couples therapist before going on national television? If they did, chances are this project would have never seen the light of day.
In an effort to dodge failure post-launch, CiBiC hosts an “Innovation by Design Journey,” which creates useful consumer insights to trigger solutions to challenges that may arise. This interdisciplinary center explores questions related to human behavior and its impact on market offerings. CiBiC serves as an incubator for breaking down data and digging into qualitative and quantitative research. This research builds upon itself to allow participants to gain valuable insights about what consumers want and need in a product or service.
Courtesy of CiBiC, Daniels College of Business
Anyone who has wanted to create “the next big thing” knows that there’s a lot of trial and error involved. Participating students will hone their critical thinking skills, learn optimal research methods, and grow in their business acumen to make them valuable resources upon graduation. Businesses can benefit from CiBiC with the opportunities for partnerships, networking, and workshops, as well as testing out new client ventures through experimentation, surveys, market research, focus groups, and more.
The business environment is always changing and we have no choice but to change along with it. By identifying areas of opportunity and weak spots in a new product or service, while also simultaneously gauging public sentiment, a product has a better chance of survival and success.
