Jan 5, 2010 | Demand chains, Innovation
Evolving a demand chain requires great resilience from all parties involved, it is new territory every time it is addressed because all situations are different, and developing a set of rules for implementation has not yet been done well, almost not done at all.
A key is resilience.
What is resilience? The best definition, and one that applies in these circumstances is by Gary Hamel who defines it as “the ability to dramatically re-invent the way you do things in the face of changing circumstances”.
A good definition for when considering a demand chain initiative, as it is inherently a dramatic reinvention of the way things are in most industries.
Dec 21, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership
Innovation is about changing the status quo, doing something differently, going against the herd. You can make your intentions obvious by yelling about it, which is not often successful, or you can start changing the perspective of others by a process of intelligent debate, presentation of facts in a different light, or the gathering and demonstration of the relevance of new facts.
Trick to this second route is that you need to be the best informed person in the room, and that takes time, commitment, and a willingness to be “out there” before you get anywhere.
Nov 30, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
The Victorian era threw up some extraordinary characters, amongst them Charles Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carrol
Here was a man who is best known for a children’s story, one that has deep messages for adults together with the absorbing story for kids, but whose body of work includes hugely creative endeavors in mathematics and photography, as well as writing in all its forms.
Looking for something to use in a seminar on innovation a while ago, I stumbled across a wonderful quotation that encompasses the challenges many find when trying to build an innovation culture in their organisations, and it comes from one of Alice’s conversations with the cat.
“Can you tell me which way I ought to go from here” said Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” said the cat
” I don’t much care where” said Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk” said the cat.
Seems to me to be a great explanation for the necessity of having a plan, with a worthwhile goal as the objective of a journey, and all innovation is after all, just a journey.
Nov 29, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Marketing
Firms are successful when all the elements of strategy development and execution are ‘aligned”, when functional management works in a synergistic manner, and when personal best interests are best served by serving the best interests of the firm.
When this happens, the whole “system” is working in an optimized manner.
The real challenge is to design a new system, one that redraws the rules of the business model, one that creates a new system.
The opportunities that will emerge out of meeting the challenges of climate change are going to be new systems, not a modified version of existing ones. It has always been this way with disruptive innovation.
Shai Agassi has evolved a new system to replace the car. He is testing with the assistance if the Israeli government a system of electric cars with points that replace the batteries, rather than just recharging, but you pay for the miles driven, not to buy and maintain the car.
Familiar?
If you have a mobile phone on some sort of a plan, that is the system that as been adapted by Agassi’s “Better Place” to provide transport, just the way a phone provides communication.
Nov 23, 2009 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
The evolution of the commercial and legal frameworks within which we live has left us with the notion of the firm as a legal entity, responsible for its debts, its own destiny, and to its owners for a return on the capital risked to fund activities.
In all those capacities, a firm is like a person, but unlike a person, who has an existence as a result of its parents, a firm does not live in the abstract without a value proposition to customers.
Firms grow and prosper only while their products are in some way superior to those of their competitors, and when the products become stale, so do their prospects of success.
This simple fact of life should drive the innovation efforts in all businesses. As the guru Peter Drucker once said, “the only competitive advantage that is sustainable is the ability to out-innovate competitors”
Nov 19, 2009 | Innovation, Marketing
The innovation process has many faces, the one becoming increasingly accepted is that of constant, small scale experiments to see what works in the market, and what can be learned to improve the next iteration.
Sometimes when you experiment, something completely unanticipated comes up.
In the 80’s pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was conducting clinical trails on a drug they had called Sildenafil, which was designed to address the chest pain associated with angina.
It was only marginally successful, and never went to market, but during the trials, a curious, and completely unanticipated side effect became obvious, and Viagra was born.
