Innovation Facts

Innovation Fact 11 – You are never too big to fail

Large businesses seem to suffer from a heightened risk of complacency, inertia and a failure to anticipate or respond to new challenges. No-one is too big to fail. The business world is littered with the stories of huge companies that underestimated the competition and failed to anticipate new developments.

For a business to survive, it can’t take either its customers or its competition for granted. Wherever there’s a market there’s competition and there will always be potential customers who decide to go elsewhere.

Resource allocation

Maybe, innovativeness is not the problem, but rather resource allocation. Apple popularized the graphical user interface, not Xerox. Kodak (and Polaroid) abandoned their digicam efforts, losing out to Asian challengers. And Nokia did not manage to dominate smartphones.

Given that established firms’ innovation engines generate a lot of ideas, decision makers must choose where to allocate their scarce resources. If the choice is between allocating resources to a somewhat tame project promising a guaranteed 3% return and a radical project promising vast fortunes, massive failure, or anything in between, decision makers tend to go for the safer option.

Flexibility versus formalization

RIM, of Blackberry fame, had experimented with capacitive touchscreens, modern operating systems, and device-agnostic software as early as 2006. They aborted each of these efforts prematurely, only to be then caught out by new entrants that are dominating the market today.

Smaller startups don’t have to worry about their flexibility. Often they do not even have a formalized resource-allocation process yet. They tend to have one big idea and no choice but to make it work. When it doesn’t, which is often, we never get to hear about it. But when it does work, we are in awe of their innovation prowess, and wonder why the big firms did not come up with the same idea themselves. Chances are they did, possibly even before the startup, but they probably killed the idea prematurely.

A proven method

The question is then: how can you innovate in a way that lowers the chances of total fiasco and paves the way to success? Even though innovation is sometimes seen as risky, it doesn’t have to be a fuzzy process of trial and error. By applying a proven method and understanding your industry and market, you can make informed decisions, removing the risk from innovation

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Other Innovation Facts

Innovation Fact 1 – Existing solutions never last

Functions remain, solutions change. When addressing perceived needs in the market, go beyond solutions and try to clarify the main functionality you are trying to provide.

Innovation Fact 2 – Find the real problem

There are many reasons why products fail, but one of the most important ones is that solutions do not always solve the real problem.

Innovation Fact 3 – Focus on one thing

Focus on one thing and do it better than anyone else. Once you found clarity on your core values, focus on developing your product or service to optimally achieve these values. Do not let yourself be carried away by what you see around you.

Innovation Fact 4 – Learn to steal

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Focus on the function you are trying to solve, look around you and find inspiration to build upon. Then make it your own, optimize it and share it with the world.

Innovation Fact 4b – Beware of the “not invented here” syndrome

We tend to criticize and discard ideas that did not originate from us, consciously or unconsciously. Beware of this and always look at ideas and concepts around you with an open mind and judge them by their value, not by their origin.

Innovation Fact 5 – Don’t judge an idea too soon

Many technologies or products have been met with skepticism and laughter when they were launched. When you feel the urge to ridicule new products, try to have the reflex to objectively analyze that innovation.

Innovation Fact 6 – Embrace happy accidents

Breakthroughs often rely on the open-mindedness of innovators to notice something new, unexpected, and intriguing. Extensive cross-industry-research can inspire us to establish new links between previously separate components. No happy accidents per se, but a good way to break through the limitations of your current research and spot some surprising correlations.

Innovation Fact 7 – Keep it simple

Keeping things simple has many advantages. Look at your products or services and ask yourself: “Does it really need to be this complex?” Can I make it easier for users, without losing essential elements”?

Innovation Fact 8 – Too busy to innovate

Planning is essential for innovation – the pull of the ‘urgent, not important’ of routine tasks is just too strong. It’s time to take action and re-tune, plan more time for the important long-term projects, because these are the ones that will help your company to remain relevant.

Innovation Fact 9 – Learn to listen

By responding to the real needs and interests of your target groups, you learn how you can innovate. Never assume you know all there is to know about your product. Learn to listen and reap the benefits of the gathered insights.

Innovation Fact 10 – Sell an old idea to someone new

Developing new solutions can be expensive, complex and risky. So why not identify new applications and markets for your existing knowledge and solutions? This lowers the risk and leads to new successes faster and cheaper.

Innovation Fact 12 – Know when to innovate

Getting the timing of innovation right is fundamental to maximizing the returns. Bad timing can lead to disaster, whether you get to market too early or too late. These are the items to consider.

Innovation Fact 13 – Learn from the best: biomimicry

Biomimicry or learning from nature will only gain importance in the future. Before companies make any design decisions, they should ask: “How would nature solve this problem?”.

Innovation Fact 14 – Waste is money

What is of no use for you can still be valuable to someone else. Audit your waste stream. It can pay off to put some effort into identifying partners who are keen to take your waste and use it as a source material for their product.

Innovation Fact 15 – Society changes, so should your company

Nothing is permanent except change. Pick up these societal changes as fast as possible and think about how they impact your business. And dare to disrupt your own business.

Innovation Fact 16 – Robots will take your job

Do you fear that robots will take your job? A lot of jobs wil likely disappear, but it is up to us to arm ourselves against a future of uselessness. Learn to hit the ground running.

Innovation Fact 17 – It’s not because you can that you should

Stubbornly developing a product nobody wants will lead to disaster. So, think critically about your idea, discuss it with others any way and any time you can. Challenge your idea and adapt to new insights and understandings.

Building on two decades of experience with over 1,250 projects in a wide range of industries. Creax is a trustworthy innovation partner.

Creax nv
Vaartstraat 130, 8500 Kortrijk (B)
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