28 February 2011

The Twelve Truths of Innovation

I perhaps should have started my posts on innovation by defining what innovation is. Here are twelve truths about innovation that I hope will help you in coming out market leading innovations.

The 12 Truths
  1. Innovation is more than a creative idea
    • It is about converting your intangible creative ideas into providing tangible business value.
    • Know what are valued by your customers. Your customers go by rational thinking of cheaper, faster, better, safer, easier and never-fail(trust). However, he also go by emotional value of look-good, feel-good, high-status and fashionable. He also decides by significance and meaningfulness like pro-life, pro-health, pro-community and pro-environment and justice. In fact, stickiness increases from rational, to emotional to significant value.
    • The present thinking is about creating a wow-experience that they may ask for more. See Innovation Defined.
  2. Innovation is must – see the facts.
  3. Innovation is more than a product
    • know the ’much more’ to bring your offering to new height.
    • Customers don’t buy products. They buy them to achieve their effects. They pay for outcomes and wow-experience. They want holes not drills said some guru. We could go higher. They want to stick things together – holes, screws and nuts are but one way to stick them. Go further to satisfy the real needs of customers. That is how you differentiate.
    • Innovation types include: 
      • The front-end: method, solution, product, service, customer experience, branding. 
      • The back-end: processes, management, supply chain, network and business model game rules.
  4. Innovativeness can be measured – know the levels.
    • There are incremental and there are disruptive or radical.
    • Understand where you are on the S-Curves of technology and market.
    • Innovation is measured by how much you achieve a win-win, a breakthrough, from a compromised situation.
  5. Innovation need not come by chance but by design on demand.
    • Learn the systematic innovative method – BVITS.
  6. Understand your offering don’t not just take off
    • It must grow with Market Life Cycle or die.
    • Different stages of the life cycle require different kinds of innovation.
  7. Innovation need not come solely by new technology
    • Know how to create a New Market without Competition by understanding the multi-stage and multi-touch points of the experience creation process.
  8. Not get caught by Disruption.- It can be Predicted.
  9. Innovation must follow a process – know the keys to build one
  10. Don’t Do it Alone – know the new ways.
    • Get customers, suppliers, partners and other involved in your innovation.
    • Work with, ride on others production, distribution and other channels as well.
    • Stand on their shoulders and not step on their toes or provide the shoulders for others to stand on.
  11. Innovation must be measured – execute With Balanced Scorecard
    • Without measurement, there is no learning and no control.
    • Innovation is about execution too.
  12. Innovation must be sustained with Culture and beats the one-off success.
    • We need the culture and the environment or the ecosystems to sustain innovations.
    • One off innovation is one-off. It will have it success and also its death.
    • Sustainable growing companies have a innovative culture where innovation flourishes.
Here is a mind-map in the 12 truths of innovation.
If you want to know more, perhaps you can sign up in one of courses through NUS Extension.
Bvotech Copyrighted 2011 Feb.

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