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INNOVATION AND DESIGN THINKING 2023

Product Idea Brief

Assume you work for a company with a strong focus on marketing a product to any consumer
segment in IIMK. Your management has asked your team to develop a new product to address
a product category to any user groups on the IIMK campus (like students, security guards,
housekeeping staff, faculty members, office staff, etc.)

The constraints on your project are:

• The product is likely to require fewer than 10 custom components.

• The product is highly likely to be sold to the end consumer for less than INR 1000
• The product could be sold through a retail outlet Margin Free/Reliance/IIMK Brand
Shop
• The product should preferably be a physical good, not a digital product or service.
• Your project's focus should be a simple physical product that addresses a need felt by
the chosen target users.
• It should be possible to produce a physical prototype of the product within the time
available in the term within time, cost and technical ability constraints
• There must be a clear market for the product.

Before you submit any opportunities for consideration, please evaluate them with respect to
each of the constraints. DO NOT SUBMIT opportunities that violate the constraints

• One way of verifying whether there is a market or not is to identify existing products
that meet the identified consumer need targeted by your product idea.
• Your product doesn't need to be a variant of an existing product. But the market need
addressed by your product should be clearly evident.
• The product need not have a huge market potential, but must present a reasonable
business opportunity for an entrepreneur
• The product must be a physical good and not an intangible service. This is to enable
you to get an end-to-end development experience, including prototyping.
• Complex designs involving many components and sophisticated/futuristic technologies
are challenging to design and prototype.
• It must be possible to make the prototype with minimum cost (what is affordable for
your team) and with locally available materials.
• The product should require no major technological breakthroughs. You may not have
the time or budget to attempt such R&D effort.
• The product chosen should be such that the group must have access to more than 5
potential lead users of the product within your neighbourhood
• Please do not choose any proprietary ideas you may want to develop in the future as a
business. We will be disclosing and discussing the ideas in class. It may not be possible
to assure confidentiality in class settings
• One good source of project ideas is from neighbouring business. You may consult
entrepreneurs and businesses to see whether they have unaddressed needs.
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• You must come up with a brief presentation for 5 minutes that captures YOUR
PRODUCT IDEA, what is the problem/need your product will address, and for whom
(the target segment). You may also justify why that need is important for the
stakeholder and why the target users will be willing to pay for your product. Please
remember, at this stage, you are only focusing on the product concept and not on the
product. The final product shall evolve towards the end of the term, where you will be
refining the product concept through multiple iterative stages of design thinking.