Our latest poll asked whether the industry is atypically limited in being able to achieve new product innovation.
Perhaps because of the traditional manner of instruments, with some of the basic design principles going back thousands of years if you’re talking about drums, rudimentary string instruments or even certain wind items, it has been tricky to try and reinvent the wheel.
You could argue that the industry’s last great leap forward came with the synthesiser or perhaps even the electric guitar. And despite repeated attempts at adding a few neat bells and whistles here and there, the basic shape of most instruments, stringed, percussion or otherwise, stays pretty much the same. You can’t reinvent the wheel, or the Stratocaster.
And if you do manage to come up with something really neat, like say, auto-tuning, do customers actually want it?
Most, some 67 per cent, seemed to agree that product innovation in MI is more difficult than in other markets, the remaining 33 per cent didn’t seem to see a problem with it.
There are certain product sectors where it might be easier than in others but a brand new concept is certainly a rarity. Most work within the constraints of an existing design that, actually, most musicians are happy with or at the very least used to, making for another problematic vagary of a market with more than its fair share of unique challenges.
