John Deere identifies important customer needs by seeing if the products they sell are doing their job and if they are not, they innovate. They also see what sort of products are in higher demand from their dealership sales. In order to create solutions to fill these needs John Deere uses product innovation and incremental innovation over time. John Deere has structured innovation teams. I think the managers of the dealerships are "innovation champions" for John Deere because they can recognize a growing demand or customer need and innovate products that are an entrepreneurial idea. I think in order for John Deere to align the entire enterprise around creating value for their customers they need to have the right products in the right dealerships in the right regions. For instance in Oregon they would need lots of logging and forestry equipment. But in South Dakota, the dealerships carry a lot more agricultural equipment and hardly any logging equipment.
