The answers to some of the most complicated business puzzles, always starts by asking the right question. This was made clear in the book The Innovator’s Dilemma. Great firms often fail, at the hands of upstarts, thanks primarily to disruptive business innovations. These disruptive innovations are less complicated to execute than traditional processes. Thus, they attract the customers for whom, the existing products are either inaccessible or out of their financial reach. Lasting prosperity comes from the market- creating innovations. One must understand before embarking on any seeming opportunity, that not all innovations have the same market prospect. Similarly, data warehousing may not be the solution to every problem, unless it is properly analyzed to bring in, meaningful actionable insights. Management as a profession is often marred by accusations of being purely bottom- line driven. This however need not always true, as there are several noble links to it. One’s best self, need not be reserved for one’s career alone, but also for personal affairs. Finally, one needs to understand, that everything cannot be broken down into a balance sheet.

Source:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/after-40-years-studying-innovation-here-what-i-have-christensen/

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

There are varied ways in which companies can approach business innovation. A new framework has been developed to help companies, place initiatives within a system. This is known as the innovation radar. Innovation however is not how companies have traditionally seen it. It is not merely research and development or new product development. Such myopic thinking can lead to company advantages getting eroded, and competitors ending merely up as copycats of each other. This consequently leads to customers getting similar product offering under separate brand labels. The technology industry in particular is guilty of placing far too much innovative eggs in the basket of business research and development. On oil and energy companies, likewise it is merely on process innovation. This leads to chaotic innovation, with all players ending up making the same offerings.

Source:https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-different-ways-for-companies-to-innovate/

Uploaded Date:15 January 2019

Newer opportunities are being created in the service areas thanks to the imprint of disruptive technologies and advanced business analytics. There are four major areas where this is getting used to improve service quality. These are in the areas of- remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, planned maintenance and in upstream & remote resolution. To optimize field productivity, companies need to have flexible talent management practices. Likewise, their dispatch optimization needs to be dynamic. The use of next- generation diagnostics needs to be made. Futuristic performance management techniques need be put in use. Those companies that are trying to optimize its parts management, need to work on their predictive demand forecasting. An area they have to resolve is the logistics and network management. The parts pricing too needs to be dynamic. A real- time inventory and depot for virtual parts has to be separately maintained. Digital self- service applications need to be at the heart of those aiming to deliver the best customer experience. People retention and attrition needs to be looked at very closely. To start off, one must find simple solutions rather than straight away trying to solve the most complex ones. The digital and analytics capabilities need to ramped up at first. The firm’s commercial strategy needs to get aligned across functions such as sales, tech and marketing.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/how-disruptive-technologies-are-opening-up-innovative-opportunities-in-services

Uploaded Date:10 January 2019 

With the exception of two industries- chemicals & energy and aerospace & defense- every other has seen an increase in R & D spending in 2018. Four of these industries tend to dominate the list of the top twenty spenders. These four industries – healthcare, auto, software & internet and computing & electronics- also account for 76% of the total R & D taking place. In the last of the industries mentioned, a third of it may be attributed to the two giants Apple and Samsung alone. Spending on business research and development also varies depending on the region. China and Europe account for 34% and 14% of the total spend worldwide. One thing that the best of the innovators get right is the alignment between their innovation and corporate strategy. A company- wide cultural support is provided to this innovation strategy. Innovations are based on insights emanating from customers themselves. The top management of such companies gets directly involved in the process. They also tightly control the innovation project selection.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/feature/What-the-Top-Innovators-Get-Right?gko=e7cf9

Uploaded Date:29 December 2018

Billions of dollars’ worth spending takes place each year by governments and private corporation towards business innovation. However, more often than not this ends up frustrating the proponents, due to the extremely low success rates. A lot of money instead gets diverted towards attention-grabbing activities such as new service systems, different business model or newer customer experiences. This innovation must be considered from two ways. One is the Innovation Capacity, while the other is the Innovation Ability. The former as the name suggests is about the ability to churn innovations. This depends on the current staff and the industry one is based in. The second is about the internal mechanism in place, which can drive innovations. The second is usually more important as evidenced through multiple cases, such as that of Nokia during its crises years. The value drivers need to be analyzed from the prism of this innovation ability. Ultimately, no such drive will succeed without the premise that all of this is for shared value creation.

Source:https://hbr.org/2018/08/the-right-way-to-spend-your-innovation-budget

Uploaded Date:27 November 2018

There is a lot common then meets the eye between Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, James Dyson and the Wright Brothers. They all orginated groundbreaking innovations, yet they had all failed initially. It was out of tremendous perseverance, that they were able to get their developments off the ground. Companies similarly need to create such an environment to support and reward business innovations. An enabling infrastructure needs to be curated likewise. Any projects that are ideated need the necessary space and time to develop. These innovations must not be seen as end goals themselves, but as part of the learning curve. The kaizen philosophy has to be followed in this. These innovations must be managed with clear structured rules of the game being defined from the very start. A knowledge base needs to be curated to help the participants as well as to track their new insights gained.

Source:https://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2018/11/11/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed/

Uploaded Date:21 November 2018

Five questions need to be posed before one makes the leap towards innovation. The first is to understand whether the stated business innovation can sustain or disrupt. The next one is about the nature of collaboration in case needed. The said innovation may not yet be ready to arrive into the mainstream, so may start off with pilot runs. Some breakthroughs are more ambitious, so the level of the same has to be clarified. A lot of times, it is numerous small steps that come together to bring on a transformative innovation. Finally, one has to put aside what ideas are being tested and the methods for doing the same.

Source:http://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/5-questions-to-ask-making-leap-to-innovate?utm_source=mitsloantwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=leap

Uploaded Date:21 November 2018