Well in the past couple of weeks I have written and you have read a dozen of articles about Innovation. A question might come up in the mind about the about the reasons behind such a huge aggression behind innovation. The reason is simple and not a mathematical complex formula. I find innovation is drying up and even if it comes its being more rejected due to the aftershocks of 2008 post recessions. We must accept that in order to strive growth in the coming decade’s innovation is the only way to survive and develop new living means for the unemployed global mass.
We need innovation in every profession and in every business. Today I will present your certain facts where innovation and innovators are being killed without proper reasoning followed with the process of designing the innovation way. Well I am not an expert but its from my research finds I find the inputs to be valuable for my readers.
One of my recent finding was that innovators are being killed and were killed in the past decade. Results being expected from the innovators are mostly compared with magic. This is the beginning of the problem. Innovation investments are huge in the initial days and the successes from such innovation are usually low. The same has applied for iphone and also for Microsoft.
This risk can be eliminated if we design PainStorm session for our consumers. Well PainStorm is nothing but a session through which corporate collect information with direct interaction with the consumers about their pains in an particular product/segment/process or anything related to the objective of the company. One of the biggest features of this process will be that even after designing the innovation as per the PainStorm session the corporate will again get back to the consumer to let them know about the final innovation. This reduces the risk of failure and increases success in every probable steps.
Mobile Bazaar was an similar product which was designed after following the steps of PainStorm. The story is like this that the company went to the farmers and certain numbers of innovators were plugged with framers for a week. During this phase the company understood the entire process of farming and its various problems. Among the several hurdles the biggest was storage facility which was very less resulting loss. The innovators came back to the company and designed the process of Mobile Bazar through which buyers and sellers can text message each other demand and supply information. This improved the farmers prices by 20% where was losses got zero. Innovation works best through PainStorm.
More than Innovation we need innovators. Every company needs to leave space for it employees to come up with innovative minds where innovation can breed. Compliance and Risk management department needs to be educated and needs to honor the innovation and innovators. Since I find Risk management is more concerned about showing its own work rather than working in real terms for the companies’ benefits. Compliance needs to formulate flexible and not rigid regulations where innovation and innovators die within the womb of the mother. Innovators are not the outside people but the people within the organization who are in the process of business.
Another prime mistake which is being done from the companies’ heads is that they expect innovation to be new product or process. Well innovation cannot be every time be like an iphone product. Innovation may come from the ones which were rejected previously as it did not match with the goal of the company or ego of the senior management. The biggest truth behind failure of innovation is the hypocrite nature of the top management and the tussle behind the leader of innovation team and no leader’s team. I find that in innovation meetings where new process or products are being presented they are simply at first sight being sent to the elimination wardrobe. Yesterday’s rejection might be based upon the secondary demand of the same for the consumer but today the same might be primary for the consumer. Well when we say that everything changes consumer demand changes very fast that the consumer itself.
A brilliant product can lose its sheen since marketing and distribution process is not being informed in full extent neither they are into product design process. Neither the CEO nor the COO of the company will go for selling the product to the end user. The top management of the company should only come when the lower level management is confirmed about the strategies of innovation and its benefit to the end user. Well the greater throw may come from the weaker hand. Backward integration is the key to success of an innovation. If marketing and sales team are not included in the innovation process then despite of a best product the company will find death in its success. It being best taken that CEO and COO are the people who are appointed by the shareholders for the benefit of the company and they carry couple of decades of experience Well they have earned the experience prior to 2008 and not during the recession. The quick gainers of experience are the ones who are selling on the street. 2008 has changed very experience and its high time that we can’t afford to spend another decade to gain experience under the recession phase. CEO and other top level management need to know that quick learners are also beneficial for the long term perspective of the company.
Innovation in marketing process or anything in an existing product can produce spellbound results in an short time frame. But innovation fails since the initial baseline of expectation and marketing expectation fails to understand the strength of the innovation. I find innovation presentation and designing process team includes only the top management. This is one of the biggest mistakes of the companies. Innovation ideas and inputs should come first from the lower level of the management since they are the ones who will sell the product to the end user. If an existing product life cycle is dropping we find through our research that often out of 10 usp of a product 7 are being missed while selling the product.
A small innovative process can change the product positioning and marketing which increases the life cycle of the product. Hence when the same management was buys in drilling innovation of an new product a simple process innovation can change the current product life cycle. We simply ignore these innovation concepts. Since, as I said earlier that by innovation we mean magical returns. Limited vision is a big threat to the innovation process.
I find further in my research that product offering also plays a pivotal role in the process of innovation. Certain products can be offered in bundled format where as certain can be given separately. Reshuffling the two can be of great success of the innovation team.
Much of the thrust on innovation is being given to beat the competitors which often works in a haphazard way creating short term sparks only. This devil needs to be avoided. One needs to spend 80% of the time to understand the consumer and the reaming at the back of innovation and innovators.
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