22 Principles of Innovation

Rob Berman — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 14:00:00 GMT

Based on the last 25 years of working with local and global firms, The DeSai Group we has identified a22 Principles of Innovation. We have divided them into three categories: Organizational Success Principles, Individual and Team Success Principles and Leadership Success Principles.

When embraced, these principles create a significant difference when searching for innovations or venturing for new businesses. These principles are industry agnostic. Based on your industry, company culture, and business context, some may have more importance than others. They are all crucial in a great program design. You will need to uphold these as truths and make sure they take deep roots from day 1.

Organizational Success Principles

1. Seek innovation to alter or identify new business models. Due to the abundant number of convergences in products and industries, there is more white space today (in every sector) than ever before. Old business models are dying fast. Challenge your current business model, and perform acts of creative destruction. Work from the future back.

2. Listen for 360-degree voices. Your customers and partners are communicating their unmet needs faster and through a variety of media. Learn to listen faster. The voice of the customer alone is no longer enough. You must empathize with customers and gain new insights for their emerging and unmet needs.

3. Develop an innovation charter that defines innovation for your business. Tell everyone why it is important and what is expected of each individual at all levels as behaviors of innovation. Allow everyone to see themselves in your innovation vision.

4. Focus on developing microclimates for innovation, not the culture of innovation. This means you must find ways to make teams innovative. As more teams become innovative, culture will take care of itself.

5. Integrate innovation behaviors into your human resources performance management process.

6. C-suite and senior leaders should role-model innovation behaviors expected of others.

7. Provide basic innovation education to as many people as possible, and provide extended training to help build intrapreneurs. A good target ratio is 1% to 2% (develop 50 intrapreneurs if you have 5,000 non-factory employees).

8. Focus on fast experiments. Develop 90-day experiment plans for ideas that come from teams across the organization. Some of these ideas will surely drive powerful outcomes for your customers.

9. Define stretch challenges with a vivid vision of a future that is believable. Bigger challenges bring the best innovators forward. Real intrapreneurs are those who need stretch challenges and the freedom to test their wacky ideas—that is their currency. Liberate them to fail fast and discover ways to serve your customers. Give them candid feedback and recognize them quickly, no matter what the outcome for an experiment or a pilot. When they produce results, reward them handsomely.

10. In the beginning, provide access to off-budget funds for those who can work on challenging problems and produce fresh new solutions for growth.

11. Manage the idea bank closely—the bigger the pipeline (quantity and quality), the better the future.

Individual and Team Success Principles

12. Promote cross-functional volunteerism. Research shows that the majority of your employees bring only a portion of themselves to work. This means there is unharvested organizational potential waiting to be leashed. Allow anyone to form cross-functional teams for their great ideas. Diversity of thought is the catalyst for ideas. What any one person sees is only apart of what needs to be seen.

13. Teach people how to make what is invisible visible. No one person can see the future as clearly as a team of intrapreneurs can. Humans can see only through a lens of their past experiences. This means they never see a full reality of a situation. This thought can be humbling and, at the same time, very energizing for your best talent.

14. Learn to ask new questions before generating new ideas. Most organizations are solving the wrong problems in today’s fast-paced world.

15. Prototype fast—think design on day 1. Always promote action over analysis. Sitting in the corner office idealizing issues and solutions is less effective than two people role-playing the situation for new insights.

16. Diverge then converge. Then do it again. Then do it once more. Three cycles will improve the clarity of an idea as it moves along the innovation pipeline. The very best ideas will survive.

17. Greenhouse ideas. At the very early stages, ideas must be protected just like a seed has to be protected for a plant to grow. Never dismiss an idea. Put them all in a greenhouse and protect them so they don’t get shot down. Keep playing with them. It might take a few weeks or months before they are ready to be shared.

Leadership Success Principles

18. Show everyone how to derisk the future. Taking no risk can lead to stagnation. Not taking enough risk can create commoditization and price wars. Taking just enough risk at the right time can lead to market differentiation; that is called derisking the future.

19. Create healthy discontent. Provide stretch challenges and demand breakthrough solutions—once in a while. Most work is incremental. Your best innovators get bored easily. Often they are most sought after for all incremental challenges. Manage their intellectual capital between easy and complex assignments. This will keep them engaged and at peak levels of performance.

20. Communicate how innovation decisions will be made. Create an environment of transparency for idea generation, evaluation protocol, funding and experimentation.

21. Implement a reward and recognition policy that encourages proper behaviors for all, especially middle management.

22. Exhibit personal passion for innovative thinking and creativity.

The Takeaway

Innovation is a large opportunity in all organizations. However, it requires persistence, a plan and engaged employees to succeed.

Your turn. Please comment below.

1. What other innovation principles would you add to the list?

2. Which category do you feel is more important than the other two categories?

3. Do you find these principles to be industry agnostic?

6 Creativity and Innovation Books for Your Office

Rob Berman — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

In my experience, all ideas come from an emotion of creativity. Many ideas are easy to find. However, the breakthrough ideas need staff that is challenged to solve the greatest problems Books in this category will help you identify the problem space as well as solution space by tapping into the hearts and minds of your people.

	Managing Creativity and Innovation (Harvard Business Essentials) Packed with practical information designed for business readers and managers at all levels, this essential volume offers insights on managing creativity in groups, developing creative conflict, and using technology to help foster innovation.
	Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking by TimHurson There are thousands of books about thinking. But there are very few books that provide clear how-to information that can actually help you think better. Think Better is about Productive Thinking — why it’s important, how it works, and how to use it at work, at home, and at play. Productive Thinking is a game changer — a practical, easy-to-learn, repeatable process that helps people understand more clearly, think more creatively, and plan more effectively. It's based on the thinking strategies that people we celebrate for their creativity have been using for centuries. Tim Hurson brings Productive Thinking out of the closet and presents it in a way that makes it easy for anyone to grasp and use — so you can think better, work better, and do better in every aspect of your life. Think Better demonstrates how you can start with an intractable technical problem, an unmet consumer need, or a gaping chasm in your business strategy and, by following a clearly defined, practical thinking process, arrive at a robust, innovative solution. Manycompanies use the Productive Thinking model to generate fresh solutions for tough business problems, and many individuals rely on it to solve pressing personal problems.
	Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams Organization and Management by Hoon-Seok Choi Leigh L. Thompson Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams stemmed from a conference held at the Kellogg School of Management in June 2003 covering creativity and innovation in groups and organizations. Each chapter of the book is written by an expert and covers original theory about creative processes in organizations. The organization of the text reflects a longstanding notion that creativity in the world of work is a joint outcome of three interdependent forces--individual thinking, group processes, and organizational environment. Part I explores basic cognitive mechanisms that underlie creative thinking, and includes chapters that discuss cognitive foundations of creativity, a cognitive network model of creativity that explains how and why creative solutions form in the human mind, and imports a ground-breaking concept of "creativity templates" to the study of creative idea generation in negotiation context. The second part is devoted to understanding how groups and teams in organizational settings produce creative ideas and implement innovations. Finally, Part III contains three chapters that discuss the role of social, organizational context in which creative endeavors take place. The book has a strong international mix of scholarship and includes clear business implications based on scientific research. It weds the disciplines of psychology, cognition, and business theory into one text.
	The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman The author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation reveals the strategies IDEO, the world-famous design firm, uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity. The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation.
	Leadership for Innovation: How to Organize Team Creativity and Harvest Ideas by John Eric Adair New ideas and new ways of doing things are one of the main ingredients in sustained business success, but how does one create the right conditions for innovation? Leadership for Innovation will help readers create an innovative climate that encourages the development of new products and services. Drawing upon real-life examples including Google, Honda and 3M, John Adair sets out practical ways for bringing about change in organizations. As well as identifying the characteristics of an innovative organization, he discusses key topics such as organizing for team creativity; motivating creative people, how to build on ideas and how to be a creative leader and team member. Leadership for Innovation shows how to inspire teams to go one step further and generate the kind of ideas that are the foundations of future success.
	CATS: The Nine Lives of Innovation by Stephen C. Lundin It's time to let the CATS out of the bag . . . Curiosity might have killed the proverbial cat, but without it very real achievements would never occur. With this book as your guide, you’ll learn how to spark your innate curiosity, pounce on problems in ways you never imagined, and enjoy greater success and satisfaction at work—and in your personal life. Playful, profound, and positively upbeat, CATS provides what you need to tap into your power of innovation—and then unleash it in every member of your organization. While most business thinkers view this challenge from the top down, Stephen Lundin sees the subject from a CAT's-eye view, explaining how to get every employee--no matter what level--to think and act in innovative ways. Inside, he examines the four challenges to innovation and offers practical measures aimed at conquering them.

The Takeaway

Challenge your staff to think creatively about customer needs in new and unique ways.

Your Turn. Please comment below.

What creativity and innovation books would you add to the list?
Which of the books on the list did you enjoy the most?
If only one book could be written on Creativity and Innovation what should its focus be?

INNOVATION IN 37 TWEETS

Rob Berman — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Innovation is an often written about topic. Many books and articles have been created including one of our favorites Innovation Engine written by DeSai Group co-founder Jatin Desai. We are all pulled in many directions each day. We can find it hard to spend the time reading worthwhile articles and books. Therefore, in the age of Twitter we bring you Innovation in 37 Tweets. Innovation thoughts expressed in 140 characters or less.

QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF

Are you relying on performance engine (short-tem growth) or using innovation engine for long-term growth?
Do you have a solid business sponsor for the game of innovation in your organization?
How different is your business model and its value proposition in comparison to others in the marketplace?
How much more top-line growth can you achieve out of your current business?
Do your managers have the insight to define new problems before others do?
Are you skipping the step of assessing organizational readiness for innovation?
Innovation Readiness: business case, sustained sponsorship, culture/systems, financial resources and program management?
Is your business strategy Pioneer, Fast Follower, Imitative, Dependent, Low-cost or Specialization?
Does your Innovation Strategy communicate why, who, what, how and when?
Do you have too many ideas, just enough ideas or too few ideas to innovate?

STATEMENTS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER

Innovation is bringing heart into work.
Nucleus of innovation is tapping into people's hearts.
Innovators have a thirst for knowledge.
Waiters wait, managers manage, innovators create value.
A rhythm for growth - harvesting a cultural balance between performance (left brain) and exploration (right brain).
Your Innovation Goal should be measurable, customer focused and capable of delivering value.
Organizations must complement the operational performance mind-set with the innovation execution mind-set.
To achieve sustainable growth companies must better integrate product innovation with process and service innovation.
Evolve your mechanistic, bureaucratic and hierarchical practices model towards an innovation-driven executionmodel .
New value creation - innovate to generate differentiated new value and profit.
Once you are ready to play the game of innovation, you will need an Innovation Scorecard.
Create a business case for innovation and supporting innovation strategy linked to business vision and goals.
Build a pipeline of corporate innovators -- the key talent for future growth (intrapreneurs).
The average life span of companies on the S&P 500 has shrunk from 75 years in 1930s to just 15 years in 2000s.
Innovation can build continuous new S-Curves for your organization.
Without engaged employees, sustainable innovation is not possible.
Without continuous failure there is no continuous innovation or evolution.
Most managers are very likely to mobilize an idea if they have 80% clarity about it.
Innovation Intent is easier to identify if the senior team has already declared its strategic intent.
Rampant commoditization and disorder suggests that old methods of diagnosing growth challenges have been wrong.
Globalization and Automation are causing a shortened life span for products and services.
Innovation, if done right, should be an input to strategic planning, not an outcome.
Optimize your innovation engine on the innovation highway - alignment, insights and mobilization are key.
To begin your innovation journey, leaders in your company must take time to develop the innovation strategy.
Sustainable competitive advantage necessitates sustained new innovations.
Build your Innovation Engine to accelerate exploitation of new business ideas worthy of pursuing.
Build your Innovation Engine to improve employee attraction, engagement and retention.

The Takeaway

Regularly re-consider your beliefs about succeeding at the game of innovation by challenging yourself.

Over to you. Please comment below.

What other tweet length questions should we ask about Innovation?
What other tweet length statements should we challenge ourselves with on a regular basis?
What is your best advice on Innovation in 140 characters or less?

Innovation in Highly Regulated Environments - Global Bio-Pharmaceutical Case Study

Rob Berman — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Pharmaceuticals is an industry that impacts each one of us. Due to the highly regulated environment, it is difficult to easily drive product innovations.

Four Focus Areas for Industry Innovation

Therefore, Pharma must focus on 1) business model innovations, 2) process innovations, 3) delivery innovations, and 4) customer experience innovations.

Let’s take a look at how a $26 Billion company with 30,000 employees, in 24 countries based in U.S.

Client Situation:

The client, a leading pharmaceutical company with international operations, was faced with a growth gap, having experienced several years of flat sales and heavy competition in U.S. and generics.

The company had recently initiated a global expansion program. However, they quickly realized that this endeavor would be limited and insufficient in meeting its future growth goals. The company’s track record in organic growth and innovation was limited.

The challenge was to improve the company’s innovation capacity, identify new growth opportunities, and have a showcase success within two years.

Six Stage Approach:

Diagnosis: The DeSai Group diagnosed the client’s current situation, past innovation successes and failures.
Recommendation: Based upon these findings, recommendations for enhancing the company’s innovation capacity were made.
Ideation: Through a highly structured ideation process, DeSai and the client identified and clustered ideas into Value-Platforms.
Evaluation: The various Value-Platforms were created, evaluated, and prioritized.
Refinement: The high priority platforms were further expanded with detailed product and service value propositions.
Final Refinement: Six teams were formed for each platform to further build out business briefs to lead to specific business plans within six months.

Results Are The Measure of Innovation Success

How did applying the DeSai Body of Knowledge impact the company?

A Venture Board was established.
Proposals were evaluated by the Venture Board composed of both internal and external members.
Five candidate business ventures were selected having revenue potential of $350Million.
The existing portfolio was evaluated and 25% of the ongoing projects were halted.
The evaluation process yielded 20% of the client’s R&D resources for re-allocation.
An Innovation Board and Innovation Process Owner were established to lead the innovation projects.

The Takeaway

Through a climate and culture of innovation companies can continue to generate value for everyone within their stakeholder system.

Your Turn. Please comment below.

How does your organization ideate future concepts?
What has your experience been with Venture Boards and similar concepts?
In what types of Innovation does your company focus?

Five Power Skills For Discovering Radical Ideas

Jatin Desai — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 14:00:00 GMT

On October 22, 2013 Professor Vijay Govindarajan and I co-authored a blog about Discovering Radical Ideas for the Harvard Business Review Blog.

In the article, we outlined a five-step process to create a consistent flow of “big” ideas to transform your business for the challenges it will face in the coming years. Here is the beginning of it:

Innovation starts with new and novel ideas. Over the last 20 years, we have worked with many world-class brands to help find their next “big thing.” During the initial phases of our work together, it becomes obvious that they have plenty of good ideas. Finding ideas is never the problem — initially. The challenge is finding radical ideas consistently year after year.

When we surveyed over 300 global executives between 2008 and 2009, one of the primary concerns they expressed was their inability to compete long term without a solid innovation engine that can grow their top line. In order to do this, your company needs a process to source radical ideas that can catapult your business to new heights, open up new markets, or bring in completely unfamiliar profit streams.

Read the entire article at Harvard Business Review >>

Convergence Drives Strategic Planning in 2013 - Part 2

Jatin Desai — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:50:00 GMT

Part Two: Global Scale “Convergent Thinking”– The New Main Course?

The need for “convergent thinking” is not only still on the table, but may well become the centerpiece of strategic planning for many organizations. But, just because this trend is rapidly growing, doesn’t mean it’s an easy road to success.

Markets are fickle. They can seem to arise overnight and die off as quickly. Studies indicate 60% of employees are disengaged and frustrated with their work and too many executives are still relying on management practices rather than leadership. This only serves to complicate the risks of innovation, not to mention what it can do to a new market entry strategy. Many organizations need to begin right here with a leadership strategy to create a more engaged, innovative and stable workforce.

Add to that the need for an aligned vision and necessary support structures to navigate the convergence of commercial enterprise with governments and NGO’s, and the risks of moving into new consumer groups, platforms and new geographies, can be daunting. What shifts are necessary to consider when moving globally and what internal support is required? How ready are you to innovate?

When moving from marketing partnerships on local levels to sustainable global markets, any undertaking in international development must consider the growing role of cross-sector convergence. This entails not only possibilities for new and broader markets as technologies and business sectors converge, but must also consider how convergence is playing an increasingly key role in forming solutions to the world’s most pressing issues in developing countries.

Commercial self-interest, NGO’s and governments are increasingly coming together to find solutions. These hybrid organizations are challenging today’s sector boundaries and outdated paradigms as never before, shifting the emphasis away from income, organizational structures and stereotypical roles. With a growing awareness that markets are inextricably linked to solutions for problems such as extreme poverty, drought, and disease in developing countries, considerations of impact and outcome are coming to the fore.

To satisfy business self-interest in new markets, a global sense of community must emerge from the global development of markets. Success in the Emerging Market Economy is a combination of access to customers and resources plus willingness and a plan to help build sustainable communities.

When it comes to the global marketplace, business, government and NGO’s all see global development as the best way to create opportunities for millions of people to secure a decent life and increase prosperity. If you want the resources and the market, you must help build the surrounding sustainable community to support it.

License to operate must contain certain elements to succeed, varying by region and company size, including:

Compliance with law
Risk management
Reputation enhancement
Value added to communities

Companies must address sustainability factors from human resource management and respect for local cultural values to eco-efficiency and social responsibility including helping to limit climate degradation and loss of biodiversity. For example, as viewed on the Chinese cable network in the past few weeks, workers are rising up in protest of environmental degradation. Very simply, they too want to breathe clean air, drink clean water and be treated with respect. Good working relationships at all levels help create a more even road for sustainability.

The business case for sustainability in emerging markets can actually work to pinpoint opportunities in Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, but be aware responsible business conduct needs to step up. To develop new global markets built on ever expanding cross-sector convergences, strategy must now include linking to the communities involved. It’s looking like these markets will arise from the convergence of solutions built on innovative relationships responding to converging challenges and employing new approaches. Hiding behind outdated management practices – no longer an option.

What are your challenges and what value do you see in utilizing an Innovation Readiness Assessment for strategic planning?

Convergence Drives Strategic Planning in 2013 - Part 1

Jatin Desai — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:37:00 GMT

Part One: What’s on Your Strategic Menu? – Some Factors to Consider

Domestic and international politics, finances and markets loom large in organizational planning in 2013, but the trend towards global development remains a constant in this convergent economy. Global development is expanding, and an important factor to consider when planning and developing strategy for new markets and sustainable innovation models. With resources and markets scattered all over the globe, if you’re in business, you’re global, at least on some level.

When it comes to planning and global markets, leadership needs to consider the driving forces of convergent economies. For businesses with traditional organizational structures and stereotypical roles this brings continuing challenges. To facilitate forward movement they will likely be required to allow new ideas to find form and implementation. As convergence gains momentum, this primary leadership competency of strategically allowing flow and change becomes no longer optional, but necessary to design an organization’s desired future.

With commercial businesses, governments, and NGO’s increasingly finding the need and desire to converge to facilitate global development, grow the global economy, attain global resources, and manage suppliers, customers, employees, partners and technologies, these new strategic alliances will continue to blur lines. These collaborations will for instance, create new issues and challenges for stakeholders, funding, competition, growth opportunities, to cite just a few.

Within old markets innovation is essential to survival. New ideas are copied so easily across single sectors, that far from being a fad, innovation is vital to existence. Whether talking automobiles in the US market, opening new Asian markets for products, or even fundraising for non-profits, new ideas become global property in a sense, as soon as they see any form of media, so acting fast and decisively is a priority; and then be ready to do it again and again. In other words, keep acting like an entrepreneur, Think Small and Fast.

Customer driven innovation is apparent in the new Ford Escape with it hands-free lift-gate. What a great idea for the owner out shopping, without a hand free to open the hatch. Campbell’s 2013 growth strategy includes expanded presence in emerging markets. North America will see increased offerings in soup, simple meals and healthy beverage choices – more aware consumers want quick, but nutritionally better choices. President and Chief executive Officer Denise Morrison stated that Campbell’s will carefully attend to its core business, "while we shift our center of gravity toward new consumer groups, new consumer needs, new consumer platforms and new geographies."

Keeping ahead of the curve means harvesting innovative ideas from all available sources, including customers, suppliers, and adjacent sectors as well as your in-house intrapreuneurs. We’ve seen enormous growth in cross-sector convergence giving rise to new products and markets. Cosmeceuticals, Nutricosmetics, Nutraceuticals and Digital/Analog are just a few examples of scientific advancements and markets converging, and these are huge new markets.

As technologies and markets continue to advance there is every reason to believe this is just the beginning. Identifying your core competencies, keeping inquiry going on all fronts, adjusting to sector trends, recognizing convergences and knowing how to position products are all essential for innovation, growth and sustainability.

Targeting new opportunities requires both innovation and branding strategies. Take for example how Mazda has chosen to structure and innovate in the global market. Recognizing that larger rivals tend to aim for market center, where size alone gives them an edge, Mazda adjusted its aim and found success targeting "inside high" for their cars. Mazda continually identifies and tweaks their "strike zones" for cars, sports cars, minivans and B-cars in the US, Europe and Japan, where markets are always changing and evolving, as well as in emerging markets.

Effective innovation for consumer goods, while challenging to come by, is always the key to sustained competitive advantage. Convergence presents challenges, but also many more opportunities. Take for instance, two brands teaming up. Pepsi Max Citrus Freeze and Doritos Jalapeno Fire launched a "complementary flavors" joint promotional campaign. Reportedly there was a significant increase in sales for both products as it drove consumers to purchase both together.

Co-creation as best practice has its place, when well placed. Customer communities and co-creation must figure ever larger in the strategic planning process. The process must create brand value and customer value for further innovation to continue to deliver sustainability.

So, what does your plan look like for the coming year? Does it include new global markets, new cross-sector markets, better customer out-reach, new alliances, niche markets, or still undecided?

What about the role of developing emerging markets, global development and the global convergent economy?

Watch for:

Convergence Drives Strategic Planning in 2013 - Part Two: Global Scale "Convergent Thinking"– The New Main Course?

IT Leadership: Grab A Tiger by the Tail

Larry Gregory — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:05:00 GMT

Shortly after taking office, President Obama’s CIO (Vivek Kundra) formed a “tigre” team (technology, innovation, and government reform) in order to implement IT reform within the US government The US IT budget representing an astounding $80B, representing over 2,000 data centers.

This recent article by the Sydney Morning Herald highlights Mr. Kundra’s focus on IT transparency including an online IT dashboard with performance rankings. The result of his effort was a shift towards consolidation (to increase datacenter capacity) and virtualization (to leverage cloud-based provisioning speed and consumption based costing).

While Mr. Kundra has since moved on (he joined Salesforce.com after a brief stint at Harvard), his innovative IT dashboard lives on as an open source offering. More importantly, he highlighted the importance and value of IT transparency.

Corporate IT department can learn a lot form Mr. Kundra’s TIGRE initiative. The most important lesson and most difficult being practices of transparency. If your IT organization is trying to figure out how to drive more value, innovation can help, but innovation without transparency will give you only average results. IT leaders can produce breakthrough value by building innovation behaviors at every level. This requires transparency between employee and their managers, and transparency between IT and the business units.

The 4 Principles Of Delusional Economics

Jatin DeSai — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:27:00 GMT

When it comes to economic theories, there is plenty of fascination in the business world around how to explain what drives business and purchasing activities. Behavioural economics, the field of economics concerned with examining why people behave the way they do when it comes to their purchasing behaviour, is hot right now. Bestselling books like Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational dig deep into the psyche of people to try and explain seemingly illogical actions.

Here are the four key principles of Delusional Economics, and how you might avoid applying them to your own small business:

1. Change a customer’s worldview

2. Getting people to pay for something that is currently free

3. Basing a business model on revenue from nonexistent advertisers or customers

4. Overestimating a customer’s ability to appreciate value worth paying a premium for

Source: OPEN Forum

15 Killer Questions to help build a New Marketing Strategy

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 16 May 2011 19:37:00 GMT

So you think you need a new marketing strategy? Or do you want to make sure your current marketing strategy is solid. Review and answer the following killer questions to help you develop maximum clarity quickly.

Is there a written strategic plan and/or marketing plan with measurable goals? If not, what is the goal of a new marketing strategy? To achieve what?
What is driving the new “go to market strategy” and what are the expectations from the corporate view?
Are the products the same or repositioned?
Has a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) been formulated and tested?
Is there a plan for implementing and supporting the sales & marketing through third parties; including: training, allocation of transactions, measurement systems, staffing, etc.?
If repositioned, have focus groups been used for strategy evaluation? With ultimate customers?
What is the risk of product cannibalization? For your company and other similar products?
If products not significantly changed, why the marketing change?
How does the competition go to market with these or similar products?
What are the advantages vs. disadvantages of options such as direct selling…different costs, service quality, close rates, margins, training?
How would these products fit into the company strategy? How would these products, being sold through currently, add value in the eyes of the company customers?
What marketing vehicles have been explored to assure success…direct mail, solicitation, co-marketed with other products, etc.?
Are there plans to test market this strategy using a controlled study with market segment variables, such as income, geodemographics, age, penetration by competition, pricing, etc.?
To what extent has market sizing studies been performed and corresponding budgets developed?
How have you integrated Social Networking into the strategy?

Implementation

Option-1: Answer above questions yourself. Distribute the list with answers to your colleagues in your area and outsides your area and in other business units. Ask them to make your answers better (improve) or add new questions and the answers you had not thought of.

Option-2 (4 hours): Run an ideation session. Depending on number of participants, set up working group (round) tables by assigning equal number of participants per table. Assign a question to each table and have them generate ideas using various idea generation Innovation Tools. Give 30 minute per question. Once completed, have each table pick Top 3 ideas and post them on a Top Ideas list at the front of the room. Repeat for each remaining question.

Beyond Gravity #2

Jatin DeSai — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:06:00 GMT

Here is another installment of what has been traveling through my desk. In the last Beyond Gravity #1 we looked at innovation examples related to design, a book, a Harvard Conference I went to, and much more. I hope you enjoy some of the mind-benders listed below. Feel free to send me your comments and enjoy!

Technology: 3D Models created by Cell Phones (Microsoft): Click here
Does God Exist?: Earth is smaller than an atom…the Human mind is insignificant…or is it? NASA’s March 7^th photo of the Sun is amazing. You may want to put it as a favorite site! Click here
Big Thinking: If you understand Darwin’s Forgotten Theories you can discover solutions to just about every challenge in your personal and professional life… Click here
How to Fail Fast: Want to solve impossible problems faster? Learn to re-think your original problem itself. In most cases, the problem that seems impossible is not the problem you need to solve. Click here
Green Innovation: PepsiCo unveils 100% Plant based bottle: Click here
Product: Home in a Car by Swiss Room Box… Click here
Steelcase's Brilliant Workstation For Staging Virtual Meetings [Video] Click here

“Beyond Gravity” (#1)

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:39:00 GMT

Following is a list of videos, blog posts and articles on going beyond “personal and organizational gravity”. Gravity is an invisible force holding us back when it comes to growth and innovation. We must go beyond that. Following are some items that I have enjoyed in the last couple of weeks and the latest posts at www.desai.com. I hope you enjoy them.

1) Design: Very nice example of extraordinary furniture for small space.

2) Book: “Lateral Thinking” by Edward DeBono. Very nice and very popular. Worth having a copy if you are serious about facilitating workshops on creativity and team synergy.

3) Conference: Harvard Conference on India: - some great speakers, nice content, and one of our client company’s Chairman attending (Murugappa Group, Chennai, India).

4) Hong-Kong: 330 Square feet Flat/Apartment transforms into 24 different eco-friendly rooms.

5) Free McKinsey Report: The urban world is shifting. Today only 600 urban centers generate about 60 percent of global GDP. While 600 cities will continue to account for the same share of global GDP in 2025, this group of 600 will have a very different membership. Over the next 15 years, the center of gravity of the urban world will move south and, even more decisively, east.

6) Rural India: Rural communities create more innovations then you think.

7) Personal Branding: Dan Schawbel is pretty good at marketing himself; as a brand. Do you want to become ‘the’ brand for your chosen area of expertise? Why not?. Here is what Dan has done…check his work at DanSchawbel.com and take a look at his community on Personal Branding Blog.

Innovation Q&A with Rob Berman

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:38:00 GMT

My friend Rob Berman had lots of questions about Innovation. He discussed these questions with me and had put together this discussion in his blog.

For all questions and answers of this discussion please visit Rob Berman's blog.

-Jatin Desai

How leaders in your organization are helping employee become Innovative?

Jatin DeSai — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:28:00 GMT

To stay ahead of the competition, a company needs to constantly innovate, especially in the times when new highways and skyscrapers can change a city's look overnight and new flavors in your coffee at your favorite cafe change as fast as it takes to brew a cupful.

But, the question is what does it take to innovate? It takes out-of-the-box thinking in terms of smart strategies, the ability to conceptualize something that is unseen by others and to have the courage to risk everything and bring it out first to lead the industry.

However, in an organization, employees with creative powers and important project managerial roles often lack the organizational support to go with something innovative and brilliant in the fear of being snubbed by the boss or the leader. More often than not, leaders start assuming totalitarian powers over the company's workforce and direct them to work according to certain set parameters and guidelines, such that each and every project starts becoming clone of the other. In our experience, it is this clone-building practice at the level of leadership that causes grave impediments towards healthy and vibrant organizational environment.

In other words, lack of committed leadership support for innovation is the single largest barrier to employees bringing out their very best and being innovative – everyday.

To check whether the leaders of your company are amply motivating the younger and ambitious work force or not, start by seeing whether they are too much into appeasing clients. If they are themselves in the constant fear of rejection by clients and have restricted the use of their brainstorming and creative faculties, chances are they will lead in a negative manner and discourage the teams working under them from carrying out any innovative plan, idea or strategy.

Another great sign to look for is which of the ‘Three-S Mindset’ does your leadership predominantly use to run the business?

‘Start-Up’ attitude: meaning do they love to experiment a lot, fail, learn, and keep experimenting until something new arises? They are customer driven to find solutions to the unmet needs of the market or enhance current portfolio of products to make them better – constantly.
Scale attitude: here, the leaders have the courage to invest and grow the business fast. Leaders have demonstrated the required balance between growth and optimization, but are driven by speed to market.
Status-Quo: here the leaders are wired for keeping things as is and not rocking the boat too much. Here leaders have very low risk-tolerance, proactive about cutting costs, optimize everything, and do not show commitment to long-term investments?

In our experience, leaders cannot afford to only use one mindset; they must use all the three above really well. This means organize the company strategies, structure, teams, and systems to leverage all three without causing disruption or disengagement of the workforce.

Every leadership development program must address development of the ‘Three-S’ mindsets. The DeSai Groups’ leadership programs are based on the principles of rationality and address the inner conflicts of leaders that restrict them from ‘thinking out the box’ and the invisible biases that limit their full attention to innovation and dynamism. Our leadership development programs are based on achieving two broad goals -- the motivation to motivate by engaging leaders of your company in self-awareness programs so that they come face to face with their own weaknesses and mental block against innovation and to show them how your company is under-performing due to these personal limitations.

Thus, The DeSai Group encourage and trains leaders to become sensitive to the talents and skills of the work force while leveraging the experience and expertise of the best talent pools within. Leaders are taught to promote diversity, challenge status-quos, practice three-dimensional thinking, and identify emerging patterns for themselves and their subordinates that will propel innovation in the company. Ultimately, this will allow your company to benefit from their power to innovate.

To build a climate and culture of innovation is a long-term process, which must happen at all levels: leadership, middle-management, work-teams, and at the individual level.

Do not waste your company’s hard earned money on any innovation training workshops until you have hard evidences that your leaders at the top are truly ready to walk-the-talk about innovation process themselves. Only then, you can expect teams and individuals to embrace innovation as way of life in your company.

How Innovative is your Organization?

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:00:00 GMT

You must be having certain parameters or yardsticks to judge the performance of your organization and exactly calculate the return on investment (ROI) vis-à-vis the planning, the performance and the potential. Despite all the available mechanisms of analysis, most leaders fail to understand the immeasurable gap between speculations and reality. The root cause of this immeasurable gap can certainly be tracked down to a few intangible factors. Primary among them is the capacity to innovate for a particular brand, organization or a corporate entity.

Innovation Obstacles

The major problem faced by an organization is the absence of a clear directive or formula to innovate. The work force, which is a major decider of innovation, largely works as a cog in the machine rather than a radical unit intelligent enough to innovate as hierarchical processes are better preferred by a linear human resource.

Another area which makes innovation a difficult process to be imbibed by your workforce is lack of liberty to express in a highly structured system. Whenever there is lack of liberty at an individual level, an organization fails to innovate on the whole. More structured-driven the culture, harder it is to embrace innovation; which by its nature, is somewhat unstructured.

Organizational culture is a result of inherited and tolerated past behaviors of the staff; especially the leaders at the top. Organization suffers from lack of innovation due to contemporary business practices and the nearby environment it operates in. Thus, innovation as a process should begin at the level of an individual with full support of the leaders. This can lend a character to an organization where performance, profit and potential grow manifold by significant innovation on intangible, impromptu research, and management decisions.

How ready is the culture for innovation?

How adept your workforce is with a dynamic knowledge system or how porous they are with circumstance fluctuation are simple questions which help you to approximately understand how innovative your organization is. However, to ensure that your organization is ready for such innovation trials you need to first make sure that your organization is innovation-ready.

At The DeSai Group, our innovation consulting processes are deliberate and drastic. They are designed to be transformative in nature. We believe in a sustained innovation strategy instead of piecemeal innovation. This means that our consulting techniques rely heavily on a dramatic change to completely undermine forces of resistance and new growth opportunities. As necessity is the mother of invention, we facilitate an environment in your organization where necessity is induced to alter psychological performance and create a climate of innovation. The process makes your workforce rehearse find measures of self-innovation. This means there are real entrepreneurs working on their passions in an environment that promotes experimentation, risk-taking, and future thinking.

The right brand image within insiders of an organization is a necessary precondition for any kind of innovation. If a nagging employee has a negative attitude toward the organization’s optimism the result is not only affecting the performance of the concerned individual but the overall environment as well. Such individuals can be motivated through vigorous team-building and venturing skills.

The process of innovation is largely a psycho-social process wherein knowledge transfer and experiential methods are largely employed to achieve the goal. We, here at The DeSai Group, clinically approach the intangibility quotient of innovation through hard-core rational, analytical science we call “Innovation Execution Methodology”, while keeping in mind that innovation is also very much a form of art and it is the artistic and unpredictability that actually gives rise to new ideas for commercialization and value generation.

What Will Happen in 2011?

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:18:00 GMT

Wow, another new year! Where does the time go?

We have seen another turbulent year filled with uncertainty, threats, and opportunities.

So, here is our attempt at sharing our favorite 20 Global Insights for 2011 and beyond.

What is inside this free report? Read on....

Did you know you have a Social Signature on the internet? What is Group Buying? Is this going to be the year for PC Tablets? What about Facebook? What should you plan for? How will Social Media impact your business? Home Banking and Home Medicine? Digital-only classes? And have you heard of Surprise Marketing? plus much more...

Here is a free report to download to find trends and innovations in technology, consumerism, society, and products. Enjoy. http://bit.ly/gI0Vmb

Nine Excellent Ways To Stifle Innovation

Jatin DeSai — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:17:00 GMT

Innovation doesn't just happen…it comes from awesome intrapreneurial teams. Are you or your company guilty of killing good ideas?

Yes, everyone at the top is interested in innovation. It has become a business mandate in many organizations. But are the leaders serious? We find that plenty of companies are not walking the talk. They want innovation, but also don’t want to recalibrate the organizational systems. These systems are where a good idea has as much opportunity to succeed as me going to the moon. Why so?

For starters, organizations do not have an internal muscle for a creative process. The creative process is not well understood and it is truly a fragile process. This situation promotes uncertainty; something most leaders do not want to spend time on. Additionally, there are very few internal experts who can support it and nurture it like there are for project management processes, customer service processes, budgeting processes, etc. This is very tough in today’s short-term focus surrounded by the fear-inducing environment of rapid technological change and dynamic markets—but this also makes innovation essential.

So what to do? First, kill the innovation killers. Here is our list of innovation killers that will need significant moderation if not surgical removal. You can discover for yourself if you have an environment that is crushing good ideas or allowing growth and change to be welcomed.

Clear(?) and cumbersome approval processes, rules, regulations for every action at every level within the organization. Making decisions takes forever and when they are made, they take forever to implement. Too much process everywhere.
Silos are promoted. The organization loves to allow departments and individuals to compete against one another for resources and protect their areas.
The truth is one-sided the truth comes mostly in the form of criticism without praise. The glass is always half-empty. The focus is so much on execution, that the culture often forgets the impact on human spirit.
Don’t trust new ideas. All ideas are evaluated with great suspicion and ‘yes, but’. When someone contributes a new idea, the first thing someone says is ‘yes but…’ followed by ‘not sure if we can do that, or we have never done that before, or management will not approve it, etc.’ Moving away from the status quo is very difficult and not often welcomed.
Control and calibrate everything. The organization is very systematic, dashboard driven, precise, and project managed. Although all of that is very essential, the system does not allow for any quick experimentation of new ideas or technologies with spontaneity. Missing target goals is frowned upon more than the lessons gathered through failure.
Organization is very secretive. Restructuring, product launches, competitive news, and executive changes all occur in a secretive manner. Leaders believe that “the less people know, the better they can stay focused on the day-to-day job.” The firm does not like to share bad news with employees until the last minute.
Promote class-based relationships. There are seniors and inferiors. Seniority and tenure are heavily used to promote fear-based execution. The culture perpetuates the idea that seniors know everything and they should get the best of everything. The higher you are up in the ladder, the more you are allowed to look down at others. Unpleasant duties can be delegated to inferiors.
The pyramid is inverted. The higher-ups know everything important about the business, and the bottom does not need to know how the business should be conducted; as long as they do what they are trained to do.
Leadership is invisible. Leaders are not able to connect to employees. Employees do not have confidence in the leaders based on their action and those of the top management team.

Driver for Adoption of an Innovation: Technology or Market?

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:30:00 GMT

What is the driver for new innovations? Does technology drive new innovations or does the Market dictate need for new innovation?

In many ways we are speaking about the two sides of a coin. So the question is, what is the coin made of? (sorry to get too philosophical, but allow me to please).

Technology is something that gets created by technologists because:
1) It is Human Nature to Create and Solve - the passion and desire to solve something far greater then one’s self (Human Spirit as the driver). There are many who simply create because they want to serve. There is nothing in it for them, but to experiment and create.

2) Motivated by raw Discovery and Inquiry – just to see what can happen (Academic Personal Brand as the driver – in most cases). Of course academia is far removed in many cases so piles of patents/technologies are created without a home for applications.

3) Marketers ‘tells’ the technologist what the market demands are and they go off and innovate (Market Driven). Of course we know how often the product actually generates the indented impact – not very good (and both the marketer and the technologist gets ‘restructured’…lol).

4) As the recent new Hollywood movie “Wall Street” depicts and as the Mortgage Crises occurred here in USA, we also see Financial Performance as the driver for new innovation at the cost of societal damage (Greed as the driver)

5) I also think technologist stay busy because of fear. Either they or someone else in their organization is fearful of losing to competition, losing their job, losing their reputation or losing their personal belongings. (Fear Driven)

I believe that Market Driven has two definitions: 1) There is an unmet Market need in the current market and 2) There is a new market being developed that is un-harvested.

If we assume the Fortune 1000s or Global 2000s as the context, I think that most innovation is driven (funding) by the “Current Market Conditions” and the “Adjacent(near future) Market Conditions” of those markets.

-Jatin

Part-4: For CEOs, what are the FOUR critical innovation barriers that must be addressed?(Part 4 of 4)

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:33:00 GMT

In this four part series, I mentioned that every CEO and business executives who intends to lead innovation as a strategic agenda will need to address four critical barriers to innovation.

First barrier is the mindset to harvest ideas and manage those ideas as Venture Capitalists does not exist, second barrier is the inability to recognize how to align the abundance of resources available to large organizations for investment in innovation, the third barrier is to recognize the sheer size of the human capital assets that are under-utilized and disengaged from an organization’s creative capacity. The opportunity for most organizations is to dedicate talented “New Game Teams”, focused on harvesting the creative ideas and leadership competencies, to build new top-line growth capacity.

The fourth and final barrier relates to the broad product and delivery capabilities that large-scale organizations possess.

For example, since the mid-1980’s in the financial services industry, the typical company has gone from handful of delivery channels (Branches, Relationship Managers) to literally 15-20 channels (Branches, Direct Mail, Internet, National Sales Force, Business ATMs, Corporate Cards, Affinity Marketing, Wireless, etc.); all the while expanding its product offerings by ten-fold. “Anytime, Anywhere” banking has become the price of entry across the industry as providers strive to meet the need of large and diverse customer bases.

This has created a huge challenge, since those dedicated assets to serve the wide variety of customers are not fully leveraged for new innovation. The complexity of providing the right product to the right customer through the right delivery channel in real-time – in a way that doesn’t destroy the economics of the company – becomes a monumental challenge with each new innovation. Add to this, the overwhelming issue of tying the employment brand to the product brand in the marketplace and the various components of talent acquisition.

The bottom line: the accomplishment of end-to-end alignment between products, channels, and talent acquisition (employment offers) is the single largest challenge facing large companies today. The best organizations that can create smaller more nimble organizations while retaining to leverage strength of larger institution will be in the best position to out-compete in the future, enter emerging markets quickly, and adjust to external fast-pace factors.

For complete details, please download full 23 page whitepaper on “Mastering Innovation – Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation by Mr. Jatin DeSai”

Part-3: For CEOs, what are the FOUR critical innovation barriers that must be addressed?(Part 3 of 4)

Jatin DeSai — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:40:00 GMT

In my last post, I mentioned that every CEO and business executives who intends to lead innovation as a strategic agenda will need to address four critical barriers to innovation.

First barrier is the mindset to harvest ideas and manage those ideas as Venture Capitalists does not exist. This requires demonstrated confidence to consciously fail, experiment often, and win occasionally. Goal is to do more of it, so you can out-compete the markets.

Second barrier I mentioned in the previous post was the inability to recognize how to align the abundance of resources available to large organizations for investment in innovation. Smaller and less nimble competition cannot, physically, out-compete you if you can leverage the resources you have. This is the primary reason for new entrants who win big against existing mature businesses; example: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Skype, etc.

The third barrier is to recognize the sheer size of the human capital assets that are under-utilized and disengaged from an organization’s creative capacity. The opportunity for most organizations is to dedicate talented “New Game Teams”, focused on harvesting the creative ideas and leadership competencies, to build new top-line growth capacity. Proctor and Gamble’s global research and development organization back in 2008, employed over 7,500 scientists; GE used to train 10,000 managers every year and performed over 5,000 detail performance reviews of its senior-most employees; and Cisco increased its engineering workforce by 300% since 2000 to 2008.

The bottom line: developing a holistic and integrated human capital strategy for innovation is critical so it promotes “value creators” and rewards them to continue to create value while staying in workable compensation systems. Remember, innovation comes from ideas, ideas come from engaged employees, partners, and suppliers.

For complete details, please download full 23 page whitepaper on “Mastering Innovation – Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation by Mr. Jatin DeSai”

Part-2: For CEOs, what are the FOUR critical innovation barriers that must be addressed?(Part 2 of 4)

Jatin DeSai — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:30:00 GMT

In my last post, I mentioned that every CEO and business executives who intends to lead innovation as a strategic agenda will need to address four critical barriers to innovation.

The second barrier is not recognizing and then not aligning the abundance of resources available to large organizations for investment in innovation. Even when overwhelming evidence shows that the companies who invest in innovation consistently outperform their peer groups, why haven’t most organizations taken innovation seriously?

The challenge is not that an organization does not have resources to invest in innovation; rather it’s where to most effectively funnel those resources, and how to do it.

Innovation in most organizations should be a mandate that cuts across functional areas. Problem with that in most organizations is the current organizational structures makes effective resource allocation decisions very difficult - which no one has time to deal with. It requires tremendous top-down courage and political savvy.

The few common themes that arise are: prioritizing effectively for the same competing resources across business units, designing solutions that may be ideal for a single business unit but not for the corporation as a whole, and balancing between the need to build markets while servicing existing customers.

The bottom line: resources are available, but the allocation and ownership for innovation is fragmented responsibility across most companies. There are three options to quickly overcome this barrier:

1) Develop a central innovation structure – including funding to help internal businesses quickly welcome innovation in their areas. Once initial ideas

2) Develop a hybrid innovation structure – which centralize core capabilities, but shares accountability and risks between corporate and lines of business.

3) Develop a Center of Excellence structure – centralizes core innovation capabilities and resources for business areas based on their respective needs.

For complete details, please download full 23 page whitepaper on “Mastering Innovation – Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation by Mr. Jatin DeSai”

Part-1: For CEOs, what are the FOUR critical innovation barriers that must be addressed? (Part 1 of 4)

Jatin DeSai — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:25:00 GMT

In our experience working with other CEOs and senior executives, they have realized that the markets are very unforgiving and will always continue to be unfriendly, and that embracing innovation is not an option, the next logical question they generally pose may be obvious.

What must CEOs do to embrace innovation while managing the associated risk and overcoming the barriers?

Before I share with you the four barriers, let me say that the answer lies in developing a clear Innovation Mandate - a strategic statement that describes innovation in the context of your business, the value it promises to generate for growth and disciplined process by which to get there.

Innovation Mandate must be vividly clear for everyone in your organization; it must be concise to help drive alignment to business unit initiatives, and it must help articulate specific employee behaviors necessary at all levels for innovation climate to take root. When designed correctly, it is clearly linked and driven by the business strategy.

Additionally, keys to become innovative are highly dependent on your ability to address four critical barriers that are incumbent in most organizations. When not addressed together, the journey towards sustainability and value creation invites a higher risk of failure, potentially minimizing the results of innovation investments.

The first barrier is that most organizations do not have the mindset to harvest ideas and manage those ideas as Venture Capitalists do. This requires demonstrated confidence to consciously fail, experiment often, and win occasionally. Goal is to do more of it, so you can out-compete the markets.

The sole role of Silicon Valley was to quickly take the best ideas and apply entrepreneurship and agility to turn those ideas into commercial ventures. Silicon Valley did this because they recognized that large corporations are unwilling to abandon the tightly-knit safety net of resource allocation.

It is clear that the amount of “innovation opportunities” available to large companies dwarfs the potential available to small companies. So the myth that only small, nimble businesses can be most agile and innovative is completely false. In fact, here’s case in point (not to mention hundreds of other such examples): Medtronic, a Fortune 500 Minneapolis based global leader in medical technology, on average used to earn 70% of its sales from products introduced in the previous two years alone. This resulted in long term sustainable growth of 20% and created a high barrier for its competition to enter into Medtronic’s markets.

The bottom line: new ideas are easy to find in every corporation; it’s the distinctive capability of turning them into commercial ventures that most companies fall short on. This requires leaders to role-model what innovation means to them and the company. First step to address this barrier would be to develop an appropriate funding strategy and structure that will quickly demonstrate your commitment to innovation.

For complete details, please download full 23 page whitepaper on “Mastering Innovation – Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation by Mr. Jatin DeSai”.

Innovation 2010 Report by BCG.

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:59:00 GMT

It is here again... "Innovation 2010 report by Boston Consulting Group" in partnership with BusinessWeek. As usual, this annual report is always very interesting; and at the same time, nothing new. To download the full report, please click here to our resources page.

Let me try to summarize highlights, to wet your appetite:

Once again, "Innovation" is a top priority for most companies in the world (now we have to figure what they mean by Innovation!)
Due to the tremendous economic pressure everywhere, most companies have much higher expectations form their innovation efforts then previously cited.
Most executives are much more cautious as they are trying to accelerate out of the recession with new strategies and tactics.
Survey shows that leaders of these companies consider a risk-averse corporate culture, lengthy product-development time, and inadequate measurement practices are key impediments to the future growth.

As you would expect, the emerging markets is where they are investing more so then ever before, China, India and Brazil, and feel most optimistic for the future ROI. At the same time, about 50% of the survey respondents believe that U.S. companies will remain the most innovative over the next five years.

One interesting insight I observed was the lack of attention to "Open Innovation" by these executives. It seems that they are still mostly focused on incremental innovation, and very little on breakthrough or discontinuous types of opportunities. This may be due to the market conditions, or the lack of education on the part of the leaders. What do you think? Do your executives understand the value of innovation and the different "faces of innovation"? Do they understand how to use innovation to create a competitive edge?

-Jatin

Innovation Tatva(Truth) #2: Put a ceiling on time.

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 24 May 2010 17:01:00 GMT

By setting time limits, things get done. Time is one of five most critical resource. Protect it with passion - no matter the size of the challenge.

Put a large clock in every meeting room and make it your team's best friend for every meeting. Some of our client's estimate that they spend almost 75% of their time in meetings - and half of them are unproductive and not needed.

In our work, we have found innovators who love to experiment all day, just for the sake of learning and broadening their insights. This is a critical activity, but when compounded with other innovators who also love to learn, the team may collect lots of insights and new knowledge, but no results.

Make sure all innovation is tied to strategic results - hard or soft. Hard being financials such as revenue, profit, EBITDA, etc. Soft goals can be customer satisfaction, knowledge of new technology, lessons learned from a pilot project, market variables that worked or did not work, etc.

What is Innovation?

Jatin DeSai — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:07:00 GMT

In our findings for the last 25 years in business, we have discovered that innovation, at a personal level, is as different as the definition of spirituality. It can be very personal for people. Within organizations, our play arena, most of our customers have no idea about what innovation is, and most cannot agree on a definition.

For me, Creativity is generating original, novel ideas. Innovation is putting those ideas to work and getting results.

There is significant difference between creativity, invention, and innovation. Creativity arises from deep personal beliefs. Beliefs are shaped by one's character and values. We use creativity, rooted in our beliefs, assumptions, and passions, to find meaning in our work. When an organized group, with the same passion and beliefs work together for something much larger than themselves, they are capable of generating ideas that can be ventured for commercialization and help grow the top-line or impact the bottom-line of the group/business - that is Innovation. The actual product or service brought to a market, that makes a difference in the marketplace or in people's life, is Invention.

Therefore, Innovation is all about "Harvesting the deep insights of an organization's human spirit and knowledge, generating a pipeline of ideas that can be evaluated, selected, and ventured using disciplined tools, methods and processes that advances growth objectives for an organization."

Finally, for a business to succeed and thrive, a business cannot accidentally or occasionally be innovative. It must innovate at a rate faster than current (or future) competitors - with a high degree of predictability. So, in that sense, innovation must be positioned as a strategic tool to improve organizational agility to stay alive and grow. There are only 3 companies still in business on the DOW list from 70's - and soon maybe even less.

For organizations, Innovation is no longer a choice - it should be the primary goal.

Here are some latest articles on Innovation:

- Click here to read the article 'Innovation in America- A gathering storm' from Economist.com

- Click here to read what Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has to say about Innovation.

Thanks,

- Jatin

P.S. If you want to download our latest paper on innovation, feel free to go to http://www.desai.com/Resources and download the whitepaper on "Strategy-Driven Innovation". Enjoy.