Can Innovation be managed?
Can Innovation be managed? in a factory or process based model? This is something which is bugging my mind from quite some time. I know there are plenty of literature and expert articles out there, which talks about how an organization can run on an innovation engine and it also proposes several innovation models. But still this is not a well defined a science to be adopted quickly by any organization.
For an organization to really run on innovation it needs to add innovation to its DNA i.e. needs to be embedded in the culture of the organization. In other words, Innovation needs to be seen by all working in the organization as a common sense on “Why to innovate” and also “How to innovate”. But first of all, there should be clarity in understanding innovation, which involves busting few myths. For instance, you don’t have to be creative to innovate, because creativity is all about coming up with ideas or ideation. But it doesn’t tell us why and how to implement those ideas. In other words, a good idea implemented poorly is still a good idea. Also, a good idea not leading to desired benefits is still a good idea. So, what is innovation? … It’s about implementing the ideas and realizing the business benefits of it. So, innovation involves selecting the ideas, evaluating the ideas, and implementing the ideas. But what about ideas which fall short of expectation during evaluation? It needs to be dropped or killed. The killed ideas doesn’t reflect anything on the idea itself, it may still be a good idea, but it may not be worth implementing as it might not be aligning well with the business strategy or the target market.
Other myth is, innovation is about continuous improvement. Well it’s true to an extent but continuous improvement is mostly problem solving i.e. we’ve a constraint or a problem and we elevate it to realize efficiency and / or quality gains. Innovation is much wider and extensive than continuous improvement. It’s like continuous improvement on a super hyper drive, as it not only look at incremental improvements, but disruptive improvements too with a potential of changing the whole business model and even the market. Continuous improvement is about doing better what we do and innovation is about doing better, differently and doing something new to achieve the objectives. So, innovation is about breaking the traditions, conventions, myths and create a new reality. Once the new reality is created everybody else follows it.
What should I do if I’ve no new ideas or my team is not good at creativity? We can beg, borrow, steal ideas from others; we can partner with someone who has an idea but have no means to implement it. In other words, we can collaborate! At times and may be most of the times, ideas need elaboration and which requires interactions with various stakeholders. These interactions are generally more of social interaction rather than collaboration as roles and a responsibility, which is a key for collaboration, are not sorted out at this stage. So, social interaction is an important element in innovation journey. Without social interactions the speed, reach and effectiveness of innovation is limited. This is true for both incremental and disruptive type of innovation. Identifying stakeholders is an important step as any stakeholder missed is a risk. A big risk! If a stakeholder is missed there is risk that when the idea is implemented, the benefits are either not realized fully or have negatively impacted a stakeholder or a set of stakeholder. In that case, it’ll not be an innovation but a failure because; innovation is about implementing new ideas and realizing the business benefits of it.
Unless it comes from R&D department or marketing department, the bottom- up innovation (mostly incremental) is easier to work with as it is low in technology complexity and low in cost (efforts and time) . The top-down innovation is generally disruptive and takes lots of time and investment. Example: iPhone & iPad took lots of investment and once rolled out they redefined the mobile computing market and made others to follow. For managers with responsibility with single or multiple teams working under them, there is a great scope of implementing bottom-up innovation i.e. incremental innovation.
There is also a myth about innovation that it’s random. Well! If you wait and it appears then definitely it happens by serendipity. But the problem here is your team (or project, or business) may not exist long enough for it to appear. You competitor may innovate before you or be lucky to have innovation appear before your innovation and take your business. Though innovation is unpredictable, but organizations can manage it as a process to boost business results. Provided the process works on ideas mapped to clearly defined business objectives. Any idea without clear mapping or not providing any clear business benefit needs to be killed.
So, what can I do for implementing an innovation process in my team? In a generalized form, first we need to focus on objectives of our team and then generate ideas to meet or exceed those objectives. Once we’ve a good amount of ideas, we need to group them in categories, identify stakeholders and prioritize them. Further, select the ideas for evaluation and the shortlist for implementation the ones expected to meet the objectives. At this stage the biggest risk to innovation is inertia. So, the factors like stakeholders buy in, Management support and teams motivation are important to mitigate that risk. But is this sufficient to ensure successful innovations are achieved? The most important factor, in my opinion, which directly influences the success of our innovation process that the team’s objectives should be focused on the Customer.
To summarize: When managed as a process, Innovation is a team sport and always focused on customer. It feeds on new ideas, involves social interactions and aimed to achieve business results. It doesn’t just solve a problem; it creates new realities or horizons (products and markets).
Glocalization – Think locally, act globally!
Develop a world where local areas benefit from global resources while retaining their own cultural identities. Think locally, act globally!
The local knowledge component is essential for making a global product fit the local market. To do that effectively, you’ve got to have individuals who understand what makes that particular market tick. Someone sitting in Detroit and exporting product to New Delhi isn’t necessarily going to have that level of expertise.
“Glocalization” is not something new. Followers of Jesus exactly did this while spreading Christianity across the globe. It was effective; it was acceptable, it worked without causing any noticeable backlash. Conflict between cultures has defined much of human history – from tribal turf wars and imperial conquests to clashes of religion and lifestyle. Where different values meet, confusion and unrest can follow. The same continues as powerful global companies move into local areas while local areas reach out for available technology, information and economic benefits. Glocalization’s goal is to ensure a globalized world is a stable and integrated place, while also protecting the cultural heritage of local areas
For instance, when Wal-Mart opened stores in Germany, one of the store’s signature practices had an adverse effect on customers. The use of greeters discouraged many German shoppers who were unaccustomed to such obliging customer service.
Wal-Mart tied up with Bharti (the local market) last year and the first cash-n-carry (Sams club like) is now opened in India without any political or social backlash.
Apple couldn’t replicate the success of iPhone in India, it failed to generate the basic interest of the consumer because they tried to market it in India like they did in US.
McDonald’s Corporation is one of the best users of glocalization. Each of its restaurants, in more than 100 countries, offers McDonald’s branding, but the actual menus vary to meet the local culinary tastes and dietary requirements. McDonald’s restaurants in India offer mostly chicken, lamb and vegetarian dishes since many Hindus don’t eat beef. Walk into an Israeli McDonald’s and you can order a kosher Big Mac (minus the cheese).
Various global television networks adapt their programming to better suit particular markets. In 2006, Cartoon Network introduced an anime version of its U.S. animated series “The Powerpuff Girls” called “Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z” to air on Cartoon Network Japan. MTV Networks boasts channels in more than 20 countries. The network glocalizes each channel to deliver a popular mix of regional and international artists.
The marketing, funding and infrastructure behind a product may come from a global corporation, but the local level dictates what finished form that product will take. In this way, glocalization is a bottom-up system of governance for globalization. Take the economic model of glocalization and apply it to larger cultural and political issues and you have an entirely new way of looking at the world.
