Interesting thinking on innovation and customer focus in this post at Harvard Business Review –
Smart companies increasingly recognize that their own futures depend on how ingeniously they invest in the future capabilities of their customers.
and transforming your innovation mindset:
Shift the focus from extracting value from customers to making customers more valuable. Simply put, this new focus redefines the purpose of innovation — which is not just designing better products and services, but designing better and more valuable customers.
Read more here: https://hbr.org/2012/07/who-do-you-want-your-customers