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Johnson & Johnson Wound Management: Driving a customer focused innovation process

Sagentia's Opportunity Discovery and Technology Innovation service offerings are used to identify new product concepts and help drive a customer-focused innovation process at Johnson & Johnson Wound Management.

Ethicon

We worked with Johnson & Johnson Wound Management, a division of Ethicon Inc., at a time when they were developing a customer-focused innovation process. Their aim was to find an entry point into a new market based on accurate insights and to develop a robust and repeatable process that could be used for similar tasks in the future.

We undertook an Opportunity Discovery program where deep immersion techniques were used to study wound management at the end of a particular surgical procedure. A joint team comprising innovation and development experts from Sagentia and specialists from JJWM was assembled and observed in excess of 100 procedures at 12 hospitals across the US.

The team then carried out structured analysis using a variety of proven techniques:

  • the 4Ps methodology – encompassing People, Products, Places, and Process – was used to deconstruct the lifecycle map of the procedure
  • we used drill down methods and mind-mapping techniques to explore insights and uncover underlying causes
  • video and audio recordings supported the insights that were developed and provided ongoing guidance to the development team

100+ new product concepts

The insights gained during the Opportunity Discovery phase were then used as the starting point for a Technology Innovation program and to develop filter criteria for ranking the 100+ new product concepts that were produced.

The most promising concepts were subject to a rigorous Technical Feasibility study which resulted in a number of prototypes being tested in vivo.

The entire program of work was completed in nine months and provided JJWM with a number of novel, technically validated, product concepts.

The main distinguishing feature of this approach was that the team who undertook the deep immersion went on to carry out the innovation and technical feasibility work. This enabled the true voice of the customer to be championed and provided confidence that the product concepts would meet the real needs of the customer.

For a subsequent program of work, we acted as a mentor while the JJWM team carried out an immersion study in a new area. The JJWM team has now taken the methodologies developed and experiences gained during these programs and built them into a process which they manage and own.