Reduce the Rate of Cost for the Input Used to Produce the Output

Use the same type of input and the same activities, but pay less for the unit of input employed in producing the output. A reduction in rate is equivalent to a reduction in the number of inputs for the same ICD. For example, if a person who makes $10 per hour could produce the same amount of output as a person making $20 an hour, the substitution of the $10 person for the $20 person in the process would be equivalent to cutting the number of people required to do the work by 50%.

F. Change source of supply to a less expensive supplier:

A change in the supplier relationship may enable the company to switch to a less expensive supplier. The supplier may be less expensive because it has lower costs or because it reduces the company’s logistic expenses.

Use general public

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	0	2007	Computer scientists are using highly addictive computer games to get the public to carry out mundane tasks and test tier products. The ESP Game, an initiative by a Carnegie Mellon professor, links two random players via the web. Both users are shown the same picture and type in possible key words to describe what they see. If the names match, they are rewarded points, encouraging competition. This allows computer scientists to label and categorize pictures from the Internet, a task that computers can rarely do properly.
2	0	2007	When government and corporations fail to solve problems, new prizes are encouraging people to offer solutions to common problems. The X-Prize Foundation offered $10 million to the first team that can build and demonstrate a device to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less. Prizes encourage people to work hard and sponsors only pay for success, minimizing their economic risk.
3	0	2007	When government and corporations fail to solve problems, new prizes are encouraging people to offer solutions to common problems. InnoCentive charges clients to broadcast specific scientific problems on a website where scientists are offered cash for solutions. Prizes encourage people to work hard and sponsors only pay for success, minimizing their economic risk.
4	2000	2004	Clif Bar, the manufacturer of energy and nutrition bars, sponsors charitable events to raise money for various causes. In addition to the results for charities involved, the exposure of Clif Bar as a socially responsible company helps the bottom-line. The company donates 1% of annual sales to charity, a significant amount for the $100 million a year company. The Luna bar, aimed at women and bearing the Breast Cancer Fund logo, did extremely well and the company had feedback from consumers happy to support a cause. 75% of the firm's marketing budget goes into grass roots efforts, small weekend events which cost less than large advertising campaigns but pay off in good will.
5	2086	2005	Pepsi-Co launched a new cola in 2004, Pepsi Edge, which tasted similar to original Pepsi, but with half the calories. Edge was green-lighted in large part after focus groups endorsed the concept. But it was a classic case of a focus-group false-positive and the product lacked a place in the market. Looking for better indicators of consumer acceptance, Pepsi recently turned to Invoke Solutions, which conducted several instant-message-style online panels of 80 to 100 people collected by its affiliated online survey firm, Greenfield Online. Pepsi delved into attitudes among young adults toward drinking mineral water. In just a few hours, the beverage marketer was able to gather and process hundreds of consumers, much more efficient than traditional focus groups.
6	2841	2008	Many companies show need for broader management strategy that addresses how they are creating, sharing, and using knowledge. Procter & Gamble Co. uses a "Connect and Develop" strategy, where it seeks to ID and team up with other companies, universities, academics, retirees, and individual inventors who have ideas or expertise that could help P&G develop new products, designs, technology packaging, business models or manufacturings. More than 40% of P&G products have an externally sourced component, up from less than 10% just six years ago.
7	3661	2008	Many companies show need for broader management strategy that addresses how they are creating, sharing, and using knowledge. The best way to create knowledge is by soliciting ideas, insights, and innovations from all company workers, customers, and business partners, rather than just relying solely on the R&D staff. Nokia has benefited from this strategy by setting up Wikis and blogs that researchers and employees can contribute to. It also collaborates with universities, design firms, and telecom industry partners.
8	3711	2005	When General Motors unveils its H3 Hummer, it will feature some distinctive characteristics, designed by everyday drivers. GM was under pressure to build a midprice version of its famous vehicle so it enlisted 481 regular people to critique its designs. The people made a number of suggestions, including a comment that the grille was too similar to Jeep's–important for GM as they were recently sued by DaimlerChrysler for knocking off Jeep's grille on the H2. The H3 will be priced at $30,000. There is no telling whether customer input will boost sales or not. GM hopes the approach will cut 6 months and millions of dollars in the car design process.
9	3944	2005	RC2 has for years made miniature Nascar models for adults. It added toys for children and infants in 1999. To gain more research, it is sending products to mothers. They have the mothers test the products with their children and then send back the results as well as suggestions. RC2 then makes the changes. The whole approach has cut 8 weeks off the time it would have taken using conventional research.
10	5000	2004	A Pure Romance product that costs $1.50 to manufacture is sold to one of the 6,200 party consultants for $6.50. They mark it up to $20 and keep the profit. The party hostess keep less than 10% of the profit. She also gets a 3.5% commission on the products sold by the consultants she has recruited. Products are selling fast.
11	5812	2005	Taco Bell recently turned to consumers to help create a new burrito, aiming for a "truly healthy" product. The participants chose from different fixings and combinations. The result was not a low-cal item, but a three-cheese 'indulgent' burrito priced at $2, an expensive product for the chain.
12	5941	2005	Sikko Snowboards was launched for kids who wanted to design their own $50 snowboard skins (vinyl graphics) on the web. The business sky-rocketed but not for that reason. The consumers weren't interested in customizing. The 10,000 online fanbase spent time on Sikko's site discussing hobbies and buying habits and rating skins. This info has helped Sikko design better skins; 60% of Sikko's revenue also comes from companies who use its customers for market research.
13	7311	2005	In May 2004, Converse's ad agency persuaded Converse to outsource ads to fans, soliciting 60-second films from anyone with an idea and a camera. The makers of the winning films selected to be ads each got $10,000, a far cry from the $300,000-plus cost of a regular 30-second TV spot. Besides generating 81 artful ads at such a low cost, Converse's Web site has been getting 400,000 unique visitors a month, 40% more than before the films launched
14	7311	2005	Online feedback is catching on with consumer-goods companies because it's a lot cheaper than focus groups. To pull a face-to-face focus group together, a marketing firm might spend $100 a head on cash inducements. But you can get thousands of online participants joining in for no more reward than a T shirt.
15	7372	2005	IBM is allowing open-source projects to use its intellectual property free of charge in an effort to fend off Microsoft Corp. and its Windows monopoly. IBM, not Microsoft, seems to have the wind at its back. Increasingly, info tech managers see open-source programs as trusted building blocks for critical computing systems. Linux and Apache, which serves up Web pages, are the best-known examples, and both have become market share leaders. But companies are also embracing a host of other applications, including software for managing databases and writing custom programs. Not only do companies typically pay less for open-source software than for traditional software, they're also less likely to be locked in by any one tech supplier, Microsoft or IBM.
16	7375	2007	People are willing to carry out a mundane task for free or very low rates if it is made into a game. Amazon.com has a site called Mechanical Turk which pays low rates for various tasks, like writing a movie plot summary.
17	7841	2007	When government and corporations fail to solve problems, new prizes are encouraging people to offer solutions to common problems. Netflix offered $1 million for an algorithm that better predicts whether a customer will enjoy a movie depending on ratings of previous movies. Prizes encourage people to work hard and sponsors only pay for success, minimizing their economic risk.

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