In the case of Proctor and Gamble, the Continuum website reads:
"In 1994, the director of Corporate New Ventures at Procter & Gamble asked the right question:
'There has got to be a better way to clean a floor. Cuhttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6393021620917980479#editor/target=post;postID=7504808846599749380rrent mops are
the cleaning equivalent of the horse drawn carriage – where’s the car?' "
Continuum took that question and did some research regarding cleaning floors and peoples habits when doing so. Through this, what they call "design research", they set out to create a product that either filled, or mitigated most, if not all, of the issues that their research brought up. The result was the Swiffer, which has gone on to be a wild success.
Creating innovative products to help solve existing problems is not even half of the services that Continuum provides. Continuum helps companies to optimize existing products in tight markets - discovering what combination of things like quality, price, availability, or something as minor as the aesthetics of the packaging, will allow that product to achieve its potential, perhaps even beyond it.
In situations where the company is not concerned with their products themselves, Continuum aids in the overall experience of the product. In one of my earlier posts, I spoke about Apple's brand compared to Samsung's. This is a perfect example of where a company such as Continuum could find itself a job. Apple has its own 'Apple experience' - this is what Continuum can help to create. Advertising, packaging, company policy: all of these fall into that company's, or maybe even that product line's, brand. Continuum helps companies to streamline their brand - taking what they refer to as 'brand DNA' and translating it into 'design language'. Continuum then shows that company how to impose its brand upon its products, helping those products to speak that same language to consumers, providing a rich, multi-level experience that will be both satisfactory, and memorable - hopefully creating brand loyalty.
Services provided by a company are also not beyond Continuum's ability. Perhaps the service doesn't fit the brand experience, or perhaps there are certain facets that could use tweaking, or maybe even the company wishes to implement a brand new service. In much the same manner, through research, test models, consumer feedback, and above all, innovative design, Continuum provides assistance in this area as well, streamlining existing services, creating new ways in which a service may be implemented, informing the company of the ways that they can make their experience more seamless, and more effective in the real world - not just on paper.
Continuum's services stretch from the most basic forms of assistance, such as improving scheduling in an office, to helping the company to create a plan and model for its initial and continued growth. Such a consultancy is something that the corporate world should embrace with open arms, especially in such a day and age when specialization is becoming the only way to continue a companies success. Continuum can help you to make sure that the manner in which you are specializing will succeed, and it just might be able to find a way to improve upon something that everyone thought could not be improved upon.
