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A toilet with a purple wireframe shell and a water wave pattern, along with green data particles in the bathroom, symbolizes disruptive innovation at KBC.

Innovation

Disruptive Innovation at Villeroy & Boch

Villeroy & Boch saw its market share coming under increasing pressure due to growing globalization and global competition. Within the company, the strategic importance of disruptive product innovation had long been recognized, but it was unable to implement it internally on its own. The BOLD KBC Center for Innovation supported Villeroy & Boch using “The BOLD Way” method to completely rethink an established product: A workshop designed to deliberately break existing patterns of thinking led to the creation of a rimless toilet, which became the best-selling sustainable product in the company’s portfolio.

Disruptive Innovation by the Numbers

Reducing Water Consumption When Washing Dishes
Red Dot Design Award
Model Series Developed

The Customer

Villeroy & Boch

Villeroy & Boch is an internationally active manufacturer of sanitaryware and bathroom products with a long-standing market presence. Due to advancing globalization and global competition, the company’s market share came under increasing pressure; traditional, incremental improvements to existing products were no longer sufficient to differentiate the company from its international competitors. The strategic importance of disruptive product innovation was clearly recognized internally, but it could not be implemented on the company’s own with its existing internal capacities and established ways of thinking.

The Project

Disruptive Innovation Through the “The BOLD Way” Method

In collaboration with the BOLD KBC Center for Innovation, Villeroy & Boch applied the “The BOLD Way” method to systematically rethink the existing product. In the first step, existing patterns of thinking surrounding the product—so-called “fixed mindsets” that had previously prevented a truly fresh perspective on the established product—were systematically broken down. The workshop then focused on systematically combining all of the toilet’s product features: Instead of improving individual characteristics in isolation, they were re-related to one another, allowing the identification of product benefits that had previously remained hidden in the established development process. In a subsequent validation process, the most promising of the resulting ideas were selected, evaluated, and approved for concrete development. 

Portrait photo of John Dowling, a partner at Kemény Boehme Consultants (KBC). A man with short, graying hair and square dark glasses looks calmly and confidently into the camera. He is wearing a dark navy blue suit over a light blue shirt without a tie, with one hand in his pants pocket.
Portrait photo of John Dowling, a partner at Kemény Boehme Consultants (KBC). A man with short, graying hair and square dark glasses looks calmly and confidently into the camera. He is wearing a dark navy blue suit over a light blue shirt without a tie, with one hand in his pants pocket.

This Is How We View Disruptive Innovation

For the BOLD KBC Center for Innovation, disruptive innovation does not mean merely making incremental improvements to existing products. It means consciously questioning a product’s established status quo and systematically recombining its components, rather than linearly adding new features based on an assumed customer need. It is precisely this principle, known as “Function Follows Form,” that characterizes “The BOLD Way” method: First, the existing product landscape is deconstructed and reassembled; then, the new functions and market opportunities that emerge from this process are evaluated.

John Dowling, Partner at KBC

The result

Disruptive Product Innovation with Market Impact

By breaking away from existing ways of thinking and strategically recombining product features, Villeroy & Boch developed a rimless toilet with a more efficient flush as part of a systematic redesign. Compared to previous models, this reduced water consumption during flushing by 40 percent. For this outstanding product innovation, the toilet was also honored with the Red Dot Design Award, one of the most prestigious international awards for product design. 

As a result, the market share of Villeroy & Boch’s bathroom products returned to a growth trajectory, and the development department was strengthened in its application of systematic innovation methods. This result is consistent with the overall methodological evidence from the BOLD KBC Center for Innovation, which has a track record of over 1,000 projects across approximately 40 industries and 52 countries.

Portrait photo of John Dowling, a partner at Kemény Boehme Consultants (KBC). A man with short, gray-streaked hair and distinctive dark brown rectangular glasses looks calmly and intently into the camera. He is wearing a dark blue suit with a matching jacket and pants over a light blue shirt without a tie; one hand is casually in his pants pocket, the other loosely at his side, and he maintains an upright and confident posture.
Portrait photo of John Dowling, a partner at Kemény Boehme Consultants (KBC). A man with short, gray-streaked hair and distinctive dark brown rectangular glasses looks calmly and intently into the camera. He is wearing a dark blue suit with a matching jacket and pants over a light blue shirt without a tie; one hand is casually in his pants pocket, the other loosely at his side, and he maintains an upright and confident posture.
John Dowling
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Facing a similar challenge? Talk to us

Whether it’s disruptive innovation, applying the BOLD method, or support with sustainable product development: In a brief discussion, we’ll determine which steps make sense and how KBC— an international boutique consulting firm based in Munich —can help you move forward. 

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