Karen Firestone, writing for Harvard Business Review Blog Network, recently did an interesting post on looking for new uses for products that fail.
Her post was written around medical products, but the question arises whether you can repurpose other products or services that fail. There are lots of instances of medical products being repurposed, but fewer of industrial or consumer products.
Our previous post, on testing with customers early and often, would probably both disclose if a product is going to fail, and some ideas to repurpose it from customers that might save it. At some point, however, the investment in more research and testing gets ahead of likely returns. And sometimes management gets too attached to products that are failing.
So, this is a good post, worthy of your consideration: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/when_a_ product_fails_find_a_html