Innovation Strategy for Aging in Place: Preparing Your Product Portfolio for Success

If your company is in the healthcare, medical, or health product industries, you’re likely aware of the increasing demand from older adults to be able to live out healthy, happy, and fulfilling lives, as independently as possible, for as long as possible. We’re talking, or course, about aging in place.

The wish to grow old in our own homes is nothing new. It’s human nature to want to be surrounded by the memories of things we’ve accomplished and collected for years or even decades, to be close to the communities where we’ve established ourselves and know our neighbors, to feel confident in our familiarity with our surroundings, and to have a sense of independence and control over our own lives.

But macro trends have started to take shape in recent years which make this a lifestyle choice that needs more focused attention.

This is partly because of the increasing population of senior citizens, coupled with their greater resistance to alternative living arrangements they have historically had available to them following wake of the pandemic.  The pandemic showed many of us that aging in a senior community – whether independent, assisted, or nursing homes – can have unexpected and unpleasant consequences. Finally, advancements in technology, service offerings, and health care in general have also raised expectations of what we all should be capable of doing later into life.

Within the landscape of these accelerating macro trends, companies and service providers will face strategic questions about who they want to be and the role they want to play in this space.

Questions like: “How can we make sure we are strategically positioned to deliver against the needs of those people aging in place, as well as their caretakers? What current products in our portfolio help deliver an aging in place experience, and could they do a better job at it? What does a future portfolio strategy look like to address the ideal aging in place experience?”

These are the types of complex questions Sundberg-Ferar has been helping our clients answer for years. We have a proven innovation process, established tools, and multi-functional talent to dig into these big unknowns, help uncover unmet needs, and identify high-potential innovation pathways and solutions. Our process is straightforward, but it has enabled dozens of clients to gain new market share through strategic portfolio and strategy development:

1. Immersion

The first step in our process is immersing in the “unknowns” that are present in the question at hand, including taking stock of the knowledge and research that already exists on the topic, investigating trends that help us understand where things might be headed in the future, hypothesizing about opportunities that might exist, and developing questions we’ll need to answer to determine if what we think is an opportunity for innovation actually is one.

2. Discovery

Then our team moves into discovery investigations to start answering the questions we’ve compiled. This is customized for every project’s individual needs but could involve observing and talking with stakeholders – the individuals we hope to serve, and/or those who will interact with the product/service being innovated – to understand their needs and aspirations. It could also involve talking with experts on the topic who have years of experience and unique insights into the history and potential future direction of the industry we’re focused on. Secondary research can also play a role in our investigations, helping the team dig into topics like the competitive landscape, technology developments that are impacting the industry, design trends, material investigations, sustainability considerations, and so on.

3. Synthesis

We should now have the answers we need to move from hunches about where opportunities might lie, to confident decisions about where the team should focus its efforts. We bring together all the information we’ve gathered and synthesize this into insights about functional, emotional, and viable attributes of the ideal product or service experience. These attributes help us give clarity to future innovation opportunities and start inspiring concrete solutions. These directional innovation opportunities we call “innovation pathways”.

For Example:

StoryPoint senior living sought Sundberg-Ferar’s support to develop a better understanding of their residents and residents’ loved-ones, their lifestyle and environment-related needs and desires, and synthesize this work into new opportunities for StoryPoint to improve the relevance of their services and offerings.

Sundberg-Ferar designed and executed a rigorous immersion phase focused on primary research with residents of a senior living facility as well as individuals who were considering transitioning to senior living, and loved ones who were involved in the decision-making process. Through focus groups and in-depth interviews, the Sundberg-Ferar team identified both explicit and latent needs of these diverse stakeholders and used these insights to identify opportunities for innovation for StoryPoint related to lifestyle and environment.

The results of the project included a macro-trend investigation, in-home interviews, staff and resident interviews, building multiple personas to capture the needs and desires of StoryPoint’s many stakeholders, and several “innovation pathways” each of which contained multiple new and compelling service and product offerings to further differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive field and deliver a best-in-class experience.  Read more about the project.

4. Formation

After synthesis comes formation, in which we ideate concrete concepts for each of the innovation pathways, then forming families – or themes – of concepts, and iteratively refining and developing those themes. Concepts might be developed in a variety of ways depending on the industry and specific needs of the concept, but could take the shape of 2D visuals like sketches, animations, wireframes, or storyboards, or they could even be rough 3D prototypes.

5. Assessment

To understand which families and individual concepts show the most promise for success, we assess those concepts across a variety of stakeholders. To make sure we are identifying truly holistic solutions, we assess a concept’s ability to succeed within the business itself, among end users and other impacted consumers, in the marketplace, and in the broader environment and society. This assessment might show us clear individual “winners,” or it may show that pieces of multiple concepts should be merged to develop a winning portfolio for each innovation pathway. 

6. Realization

Having clearly defined what we want to innovate, the team would now be ready to develop tactical launch programs for near-term and long-term projects and begin realizing product solutions through tactical product development.

To learn more about how you can leverage our product design and development capabilities to realize your aging in place portfolio, read “Aging in Place Design Services: How to Develop Successful Aging in Place Products”

Ready to define the future of Aging in Place?

If you are:

1) Ready to re-envision your company’s role and strategy in helping aging adults continue to live happy and fulling lives from the comfort of their own homes

2) Hungry to play an active part in shaping the future landscape and industry standard of aging in place solutions

3) Looking for guidance and leadership to help you plan your mid-to-long-term product roadmap

We can help. We’ll work alongside, guide, and can even train your team in our innovation process, to create desired solutions and help scale your business. 

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