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You wouldn’t be where you are today if you weren’t innovative.
You had the good idea and the wherewithal to turn that idea into a
marketable product or service that now fuels your company. But are
you sustaining and developing a pipeline of new, viable ideas? A
focused innovation methodology will keep the pump primed and enable
you to create the market space, differentiation, and profit you
seek.
Antiphony Managing Director Rob Weber encourages you to rethink
innovation in your own organization as a means to drive sustainable
value and continued growth. For a copy of our soon-to-be published
white paper on Innovation, please contact us at insights@antiphony.com.
| Spotlight Perspective
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Rob Weber, Managing Director for Antiphony Partners,
LLC, has held a variety of executive positions for emerging
technology companies. Most recently, he was President of knoa,
an e-learning software company. Prior to that, he was
President of Elastomeric Technologies. Rob is a founder of
Robin Hood Ventures and the Mid-Atlantic Angel Group (MAG)
fund, angel investment groups focused on emerging growth
companies. He lectures on innovation and technology at The
Wharton School. Rob graduated from the Fisher Program in
Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania
where he earned Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Applied
Science degrees from The Wharton School and School of
Engineering.
Innovation: The Greatest
Differentiator
When it comes to innovation, most
companies rely on a “eureka” approach, hoping good ideas will
simply materialize when they need them. But those who
establish and manage an innovation process -- through which
viable ideas are continuously generated, grown, and harvested
– will reap enumerable benefits.
Establishing an
ongoing Innovation process in your own organization will
improve your ability to generate new, legitimate concepts and
determine which merit further investment. Creating such a
process takes commitment, ongoing management, and a
willingness to take risks and spend money on the ideas that
have real potential.
The Innovation Process has four
stages that should be in continuous use to create a portfolio
of ideas in various phases of exploration.
Idea
In Stage 1, the goal is to develop a
large list of creative concepts for new products, services,
processes, and strategies. Brainstorming sessions facilitated
by experienced third parties are essential. The sessions
should involve participants from across the organization
representing all phases of creative, design, service,
development, new business development, etc. They might even
include customers and suppliers.
Opportunity
Ad hoc Concept Development Teams are
formed in State 2 to create visual representations or even
prototypes of the proposed product that can be demonstrated to
target customers.
Business Opportunity
In this stage, marketplace
interest in the concept is evaluated, as is the company’s
ability to effectively produce and deliver the product or
service. Business Development Teams (BDTs) follow the work of
the Concept Development Teams to assess market opportunity.
The BDTs create a full business plan and conduct market
research.
Investment Opportunity
After advancing through
Stages 1 to 3, concepts with the greatest promise move to
Stage 4: investment opportunity analysis. Ultimately, senior
leadership determines which concepts will be
funded.
When innovation is cultivated strategically --
with a defined process that encourages and nurtures new ideas
to support top-line growth – it can become your greatest
differentiator and competitive advantage.
To learn more about ways to implement an innovation process
in your organization, please contact us at insights@antiphony.com.
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| Book Recommendation
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Making Innovation Work
(ISBN: 0131497863)
Making Innovation Work: How to Manage it, Measure It,
and Profit From It Authors Tony Davila, Marc Epstein, and
Robert Shelton say that to compete effectively, you must
innovate consistently across all products, services, and
business functions. In this book, they share their techniques
and strategies for managing innovation more effectively.
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Antiphony is a strategy and management
consulting firm that helps companies create sustainable
value through innovation.
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Relaunch Tip
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How Best to Embrace Globalization
Jeffrey
Babin, Antiphony jbabin@antiphony.com
Our clients are increasingly focusing on developing global
strategies. We believe that every company needs to embrace
global business practices; however, most are appropriately
concerned about the potential hazards.
Recently, I
presented at a Global Summit at which one of my colleagues,
Tom Kosnik of Stanford University, presented a number of
compelling concepts in globalization strategies. Most people
are familiar with Geoffrey Moore’s landmark work, Crossing the
Chasm. Kosnik presents an interesting expansion of the Chasm
concepts for globalization.
The traditional product
lifecycle (Rogers, 1995) discusses the importance of
segmenting the market to better evaluate those that tend to
embrace innovative technologies early in the lifecycle versus
those that seek more robust development of the product,
markets, channels, and support services before
adopting.
When considering globalization, Kosnik
suggests, companies face the challenge of a double chasm. The
first is the Market Chasm, based on the early majority
adopter’s perceptions of the innovation’s technological risk.
The second, and less well-known, is the Social Capital
Chasm.
Companies seeking to expand globally may be
confronted by their leadership’s lack of experience in each
new country’s culture. In addition, these companies must
grapple with the lack of trust in the companies’ and their
leadership often felt by adopters in other
countries.
Successful globalization requires leaders to
consider both chasms and how best to address the strategic and
tactical challenges raised by each.
To learn more about ways to embrace globalization in your
organization, please contact us at insights@antiphony.com.
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