How big is the office furniture market and how much more can we realistically expect it to grow? Depending on who you ask, the worldwide office furniture market is about $50 billion with the U.S. share about $15 billion. Realistically, I think we can agree that it is not going to grow much more than that. At best, the industry can hope to maintain those sales levels, but few experts believe that it will grow substantially.

That leaves a lot of companies in the industry to fight for a bigger piece of someone else’s pie to grow. With only so many task chairs and lounge pieces to be sold, market share is going to be an important way for manufacturers to grow. For smaller companies, break-neck growth might not be necessary. The leaders of some of the established, quality office furniture makers might just be content keeping the sales they have and maybe growing a little bit each year. Nothing wrong with that.

That’s not going to be good enough for the majors (and their shareholders). Investors expect a reasonable return on their money and adding a few percentage points to the bottom line each year won’t be enough.

There is another way that’s far more painful, but could be far more profitable in the long run. The market demands innovation in the office and as office experts, that’s where the industry can help. The majors in the industry need to be something different; something more than they are now.

What does that mean? It means the majors need to stop simply being office furniture makers. Instead, they need to focus on becoming workplace experts with a full range of products that includes furniture, but also adds other adjacent products.

MillerKnoll’s strategy appears to include adding residential furniture and retailing to its mix. Steelcase has a short but relatively successful history of partnering with technology companies on new workplace products. But I think manufacturers should think about expanding beyond furniture altogether.

I really like the thinking of Fellowes, a company that is relatively new in the furniture world, but has a long history of innovative office products. I like that they have leaned into products like commercial air purification systems and other adjacent products.

Here are a few product categories furniture makers could get into (or at least explore further):

Office sensors. A few companies in the industry have explored sensor products, but concerns about privacy have kept sensor advancement to a minimum so far. Much of the work has gone into occupancy sensors, which is a good start, but not enough. Office sensors are needed to track things like space utilization, yes, but they are also needed to track air quality, temperature and humidity, lighting, acoustics and power consumption. These are not high-tech products and could easily be produced with a tech partner.

Wearable technology. Many people already wear smart watches to work. Why aren’t office furniture makers tapping into the technology that is already there? Smart watches and wearables can help track everything from stress to activity around the office. There are already apps to remind workers to sit, stand and move. Why aren’t there other office apps to help workers? The industry could be leading this charge.

Smart desks and chairs. I’ve covered this industry for a long time. And the industry has always talked about integrating technology into desks and seating products, but little has been done to advance these efforts. I believe there are opportunities for mass customization of task chairs, monitors built into desks and other technology that is integrated into products that could boost sales.

There are people a lot smarter than me working on new product development at the majors. Leadership at the major manufacturers needs to take the handcuffs off these folks and let their creativity soar. I would go a step further: The industry as a whole needs to have a discussion about innovation. This issue is far too important to get lost behind antiquated notions of corporate secrecy.

Let’s start talking about how the industry can become something more.