Peter Drucker, one of the greatest masters
of Innovation defined the "7 SOURCES OF INNOVATION" as: unexpected; incongruity; process need; changes in industry structure; demographics; change in perception and new knowledge.
1. The unexpected
Many great innovations were invented when scientists
are initially looking for some irrelevant objections; or even no objections at
all. Penicillin is one of the most famous scientific discoveries that caused by
unexpectation. Alexander Fleming did not cover Petri-dish lid well, making experimental
bacteria infected by Penicillium spores by accident. He noticed this phenomenon
that a disappearance of bacteria around Penicillium spores, and won the Nobel
Prize then. There are a number of innovations generated by unexpected
discoveries. In May 1886, pharmacist John Pemberton was trying to find a
headache treatment drugs, or some kind of generic analgesics in his backyard, where
actually gave birth to the first cup of Coca-Cola.
2. The incongruity
Think about Apple Air, for those who travel a lot, it would be
annoying to carry a 5lb laptop everywhere, even though a laptop is weight much less
than a desktop. Then Apple saw this conflict and incongruity between realities and
idealistic, they optimized the laptop structure and designed Air with very
light material.
3. Process
need
As a fast-fashion brand, ZARA innovated a "multi-style,
low-volume" operation strategy and the flexible order control system PDA, which
can process orders in a timely manner and make ZARA react quickly to market
changes, as a way to grow very effective supply chain and keep inventory to a
minimum level. With the help of its effective operation system, ZARA
successfully avoid those "just-in-case" productions, and lower inventory
than the average level in whole industry. Just so many innovation based on
process need come to my mind, either product-drive process, service-drive
process or customer-drive process.
4. Changes in industry structure
or market structure
Think about Dell. When there was a
decreasing trend in Dell’s market share and profitability, Dell rapidly transferred
its primary market from personal consumers to enterprises and government users.
There was a total value $3 trillion of the entire global IT industry. Segmented
by customer base, $0.25 trillion was consumer-grade market, while $2.75
trillion was government and enterprise markets. Dell catches unaware industry structure
change in time-manner and stepped out a very important innovation in IT
industry to looking for broader scale market.
5. Demographics
The reason why beauty companies are
launching different product lines is because of demographics. For example,
Estee Lauder categories its women’s skin care moisture into Youth-Infusing
Hydration; First Signs of Aging; Anti-Wrinkle; Lifting/Firming lines, position
on women in diverse age. An addition example would be in recent years, many cosmetic
companies have released men's skin care products. Compared with women’s beauty
products, the total probability of success in men’s market is much greater than
to enter an existing market.
6. Changes in perception, mood,
meaning
Organic skin care products emphasis on
natural ingredients has been so popular over the past few years. It has become
a major sector and gaining market share in the beauty and cosmetic industry. This
phenomenon comes along with an increasing realization of environmental caring. Many
brands like Aveda and Origins are promoting with this changing perception.
7. New knowledge
Date back to 10 years earlier; have ever thought
of using social networking to develop brand and maybe looking for some business
opportunity? Everyone is using Internet as a new technique to do marketing.
Even President Obama is taking advantage of Twitter and Facebook to construct
his personal brand and promoting IMC plan to encourage vote.
You and Michelle both mentioned Coca-Cola, I had no idea!
ReplyDeleteYes I see:) that's may because Coco-cola was one of our case study in Marketing class last fall semester, and we both took that class :)
DeleteThank you for your example on incongruity. When I was completing this exercise I was struggling to come up with strong examples on my own. This example got me thinking further and made me realize this happens all the time.
ReplyDeleteAt work we always have this conversation with our marketing team. They will come to us with an idea for a new feature (and basically want it for free). Many times the R&D team's initial reaction is to laugh and say that they have no idea what it takes to make a product - things aren't added for free. But there have been several situations where we can and have, ok, maybe not free but for minimal cost. We just had to work for it and change our mindset!
Chelsey your comment is really impressive. You pointed out a very important coordination dilemma due to conflict pursuit between different departments, which indeed is a common fact within company. Many "WOW" innovation ideas are aborted in this way. R&D could cost huge money, especially when you do not even know the ideas is worth invested, or may possible bring in money if go to the market, which can be risky.
DeleteInnovation aren't added for free, like you said, but it can be value-added as well. Thus products or service can sell in a higher price or earn more market share.
To solve this problem, the marketing team is better to identify the "value-add" point explicit to other departments (such as the R&D team) before throw the idea to the next department. In addition, based on assessment about the company's income situation, marketing team should at least have a practical agenda for innovation process, and generate reliable evaluation of the possible outcome. All the departments should coordination together along a innovation process.
Chelsey's comment is really inspiring. Innovation always is made from people trying to overcome an obstacle. As Yan said in her article, people would like to find a way to carry their laptop everywhere without a power cord and heavy body. Therefore, MacAir is made to solve business people's problem.
ReplyDeleteAbout the example of Coca-cola, that simply shows how I love coke! That was the first thing come into my mind when I think of unexpected innovations. Haha!
IMC - Integrated Marketing Communication is really new technology and an organization which truly believes that unlike traditional marketing, IMC is team which should interactive with all parts of organization and work as one single unit for output of the product.
ReplyDeleteIMC is Well brought up example for New Technology. Another new technology which is catching so fast in any industry is Agile work methodology.