Amid a growing number of trends around how businesses can reach their target audience with their products, one strategy has prevailed – product design will always begin and end with people.
In an exclusive interview with Spotlight, Mike O’Toole of MillerKnoll, America’s leading global furniture design company, discussed this approach to developing ergonomic furniture and finding a successful place for it in the market.
“We focus less on being first to market and more on how our innovations address a real need and not a passing fad. For us, it’s not form that meets function — its form born from function,” he says.
What best supports potential customers “physically, cognitively, and socially” represents MillerKnoll’s priority in product design, which is only then followed by the consideration of aesthetic trends and styles.
When presenting its ergonomic products for the healthcare industry, MillerKnoll specifically tailors its marketing approach to its target audience.
“We create marketing tools specific to the healthcare customer that are informed by what we have learned in the 50+ years we have been in the healthcare space,” explains O’Toole, listing a specialized team of sales, design, and application specialists, as well as knowledge and insights experts.
Lastly, Mike O’Toole describes “speed as the new currency of healthcare” when it comes to customer needs and cites this as one of MillerKnoll’s primary healthcare value propositions.
