This is the end... Goodbye!

Well its come to the time when its time to say goodbye! My deadline is tomorrow so best finish it today!


From writing this blog I have come across many things. First there is a lot of research on innovation about Apple, Steve Jobs and Google! As I didn't want to follow every other blogger and write loads and loads about them I hope you did enjoy the 2 posts about Steve Jobs! One might have been a bit controversial over whether or not he was an innovator or a tweaker? From my personal opinion I think he was a bit of both! He took products, whether they were his own ideas or someone elses, and made them into the successful products they are today. I don't think there are many people on this earth who don't know what an iPod, iPad, or MAC computer are! Even my 80 year old Nan knows what a iPod is! 


I always knew the Virgin Group were innovative due to the amount of different markets that they are in, but I was quite shocked to find out that they had over 300 companies, all running from the one name and all under the name of Sir Richard Branson. I think virgin is one of the most innovative companies there is, due to that fact Sir Richard built by himself from the age of 15. Virgin have managed to dip their fingers in every single pie they could! And have succeed to eat most of that pie them selves! (excuse the saying!) 


One thing I did learn is that innovation is something needed for the business to succeed. If a company didn't innovate they would defiantly be out of the market before they could say hello profits! Each company needs to innovate just to survive the cruel market place!


Another discovery was how innovation is a subject that needs to apparent in every single corner of the business, from products to leadership to marketing even to the competitiveness of the business. 


I think i have come across many innovative products on my research and development of this blog. I think the main one for me was the pocket shower. I think its an amazing idea and I'm tempted to buy one for use in the festivals I'm going to next year! 


Well I think thats it from me, so thanks for reading and I wish you all the best!
Becky 

Innovation Life Cycle

This video shows how the US government are trying to educate more people with the way in which an idea becomes a successful product. (www.youtube.com 19/01/2012)

This video shows the way in which a company uses the innovation lifecycle and how it can help a company to innovate. (www.youtube.com 19/01/2012)

Innovation as a strategy

While all businesses will be seeking to imporve, some organisations put innovation at the heart of their strategy. These are companies in industries such as electronics, pharmaceuticals and computers. A failure to innovate in these industries mean you will fall behind. If innovation drives your strategy:

• You must be prepared to invest for the long term. There may be a big projects that will only pay back over 15 years, if at all.
• You must be prepared for failure; not every new idea will work. The culture people to try. This means your Human Resource Management team must recruit people with ideas, people willing to challenge, and people looking to move things forward. You must provide a reward strategy and management style that fosters such creativity. 
• Your marketing strategy may well be one of differentiation as you 'sell' the benefits of your new products and systems. The product may cost more money but the benefits are much greater for the customer. Alternatively, if the innovation is about finding cheaper ways of delivering the service then a low-cost strategy may be appropriate. 

A strategy of innovation therefore has an impact on all the other functions of the business. (Surridge&Gillespie 2009:149)

Innovation, Culture and Structure

To encourage innovation internally a business will want a culture that encourages people to try out new ideas. If the standard way of doing things is to do as you are told and if people who keep their heads down and just follow instructions are the ones that get promoted then this will not encourage new ideas and new ways of doing things. Innovation therefore requires a culture that encourages people to try new ideas, that does not punish failure and that rewards those who do come ip with new approaches. The commitment to innovation can be shown by the leaders of the business: What do they value, what do they recognise and praise? If you want innovation to occur you need the senior managers to set an example. This will include making the funds available to those who need them to experiment and try new ideas out. Apple, HP, Intel and W L Gore, for example, are organisations that are said to have a particularly innovative culture. 

The culture is important because it supports all other actions and highlights the priorities for the business. The culture is supported by and directly related to the structure of the organisation. Innovation requires the sharing of ideas and approaches.  This is more likely in a structure that puts people from different departments than one where individuals stay very much within their own area. By using cross-functional teams that cut across functional boundaries, such as bringing together marketing, operations, finance and human resources, a project can be seen from different perspectives and this can help create new solutions to problems. Using Handy's models of culture, innovation is more likely to be a task culture that a role culture.  (Surridge&Gillespie 2009:147,148)

Research and Development: R&D

Research and development is part of the innovation process. research and development (R&D) is the generation and application of scientific knowledge to create a product or develop a new production process which can increase the firm's productive efficiency. For example, it may involve a team of employees at a confectionery company researching into a new flavour of sweet and then trying out different versions until they have one they and the customers are happy with.

In some sectors, such as the car industry, pharmaceuticals and energy, research and development can take many years and be very expensive. Glaxo calculates that on average a new pharmaceutical take 10 to 15 years and cost £500 million on average to develop.

However, research and development is often very risky. This is because you may never end up with an idea that is actually viable   . Even if you do manage to launch a product, you may find that you do not have very long to recover the costs of development. (Surridge&Gillespie 2009:145)

What is innovation?

The process of turning an idea into a saleable product or service is known as innovation. Innovation is defined as 'the successful exploitation of new ideas'.

Innovation allows businesses to develop new products and new processes. Innovation can help you create new markets such as Nintendo shaping the family gaming market with its Wii games. It can help to create new ways of doing business.

However, innovation can bring new competitors into your market. For example.Wrigley was threatened by Trident's entry into the chewing gum market, Kodak was attacked by Sony's entrance into the camera market, Gillette was challenged by King of Shaves' move into the razor market. Innovation can also make markets obsolete, such as VHS and typewriters if they don't keep up.

Given that customers are likely to be demanding more each year, innovation can be essential to help a business remain competitive by increasing the benefits it provides and/or reducing the costs of providing the product. Innovation may be essential just to keep pace with what competitors are doing.

The extent to which innovation occurs in some markets is clear. Just look at the razor market and you can see enormous  innovations on a regular basis : more razor blades, better razor blades, faster, smaller electric shavers and shavers for women.  The same is true in the toothbrush market. (Surridge&Gillespe, 2009:143)

Steve Jobs...a innovator or a tweaker?

Many people see Steve Jobs as an innovator. But Walter Isaacson’s biography suggests that he was much more of a tweaker. He borrowed the characteristic features of the Macintosh—the mouse and the icons on the screen—from the engineers at Xerox PARC, after his famous visit there, in 1979. The first portable digital music players came out in 1996. Apple introduced the iPod, in 2001, because Jobs looked at the existing music players on the market and concluded that they “truly sucked.” Smart phones started coming out in the nineteen-nineties. Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, more than a decade later, because, Isaacson writes, “he had noticed something odd about the cell phones on the market: They all stank, just like portable music players used to.” The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft, who was married to a friend of the Jobs family, and who invited Jobs to his fiftieth-birthday party. As Jobs tells Isaacson:

This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as you have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

Even within Apple, Jobs was known for taking credit for others’ ideas. Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone, tells Isaacson, “He will go through a process of looking at my ideas and say, ‘That’s no good. That’s not very good. I like that one.’ And later I will be sitting in the audience and he will be talking about it as if it was his idea.”

(www.newyorker.com 19/01/2012)

Graze.com introduce new 'light box'

Graze.com offer a new way to snack healthy at work. Graze will deliver a box to any address you want, including your office, in this box will contain an assortment of low calorie snacks, which range from 49 to 146 calories.  They aim to "help grazers across the country stick to healthy eating resolutions in 2012" (www.fdin.org.uk 19/01/2012).

The company was started by seven friends (Graham, Ben, Tom N, Neil, Edd, Tom P and Brendan) who gave up their jobs to build the graze.com kitchen in April 2008. They shared passion to create snacks that do consumers good has resulting in the creation of a brand new food category and a new route to market- Nature Delivered.  (www.fdin.org.uk 19/01/2012)

Since creating the graze.com kitchen, the company set up the 'graze school of farming' in 2010, which is a registered charity. The school is based in Kabubbu in the heart of rural Uganda where students are taught how to grow, maintain and then harvest fruit from their own trees- graze.com have donated over £40,000 since 2010. 

graze.com won New Product of the Year at the Growing Business Awards in 2009.(www.fdin.org.uk 19/01/2012)

graze.com are very innovative, they have taken an idea of a new way of snacking and have created it into a business that delivers hundreds of boxes each week to all over the UK.  Since creating the boxes in 2008, they now have over 100 different choices of snacks to put in the box ranging from flapjack to nuts to dried fruit to breads. I personally get one of these boxes delivered a week and at £3.49 I think they are a bargain, they give me something tasty to snack on while doing work! And with your first box free and the second one half price you cant go wrong with it!

Take a look at their website, theres bound to be something that will appeal to you...

www.graze.com 

Take Me Out takes dating to a whole new level....

After watching about 5 minutes of this so called dating TV show, it had me thinking "Is this the first show of its type?" After doing a bit of Google-ing I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

There was the Blind Date with Cilla Black which ran though the 1980's to the 2000's. This was a completely different set up to the ITV show Take Me Out.

The show 'Take Me Out' involves 30 single Ladies standing behind a podium, each lady gets a white light on their podium. If they are unimpressed by the single man which tries to impress the ladies, they can switch their light to red. After 3 rounds if the single man has white lights still remaining, he can then chose which lady he would like to take for a date to the Isle of Fernado's in Tenerife.

This is an innovate way of dating and TV as it is the first TV show of its type. The show manages to draw in views of over 4 million viewers each week, whether this is down to the witty comments from the host Paddy McGuinness or to see the humiliation on the lads face when he is rejected by every single woman there! Who knows but it certainly brings in the viewers week after week. And with the introduction of Take Me Out: The Gossip on ITV2 afterwards, this has brought in more and more views each week.(www.itv.com 18/01/2012)

Here is the advert for the show, its not the best but there wasnt anything better on YouTube!

Virgin- Many companies, one brand!

Whether its TV, planes, mobile phones, trains, bank and now even space travel, many people think of the Virgin Group.

Virgin is a leading branded venture capital organisation and is one of the world's most respected brands. Conceived in 1970 by sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow very successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony to transportation, travel, financial services, media, music and fitness. (www.virgin.com 18/01/2012)

As quoted from the Virgin website " We believe in making a difference. Virgin stands for value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge. We deliver a quality service by empowering our employees and we facilitate and monitor customer feedback to continually improve the customer's experience through innovation."(www.virgin.com 18/01/2012)

When starting a new venture, Virgin base it on hard research and analysis. Typically, they review the industry and put themselves in the customers shoes to see what could make it better. They always ask fundamental questions, such as "what are the competitors doing? and Is this an opportunity for building the Virgin brand?" New ventures within the company are often steered by people seconded from other parts of Virgin, who bring with them the trademark management style, skills and experience. They frequently create partnerships with others to combine industry specific skills, knowledge and operational expertise.

 With keeping the project steered by current employees of the company, Virgin are able to keep tacit knowledge in the company. This will in the long run, help the company as tacit knowledge is hard to replace so once a employee knows this data it is worth keeping them in the company.

Youtube- $1.65 Billion Innovation and Counting

When was the last time a company innovated form zero to $1.65 billion in a market value in less thank two years from founding, and in less than one year from launch of their key product?

YouTube, a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide, serves over 70 million videos daily on their website- videos that are created and shared by everyday people. YouTube also draws 34 million unique visitors a month, ranking it in the top 15 most trafficked websites. 

Until Steve Jobs and Apple started the iPod and then iTunes revolution, which morphed into video downloads of hit TV shows onto iPods or desktops to allow people to view the shows on demand. However, even the brilliantly innovative Jobs missed what was to become a people video revolution. Where as Jobs focused on creaing partnerships with TV broadcast companies to monetize the market of recorded broadcast videos and grow the business at Apple. YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim were focused on the exact opposite- free video service created by the people for the people.

The founders almost went broke broke trying this innovative experiment out after the launch when the number of people uploading videos to share, and the number of people downloading videos to watch grew exponentially. However, the growth of Internet as a network and the fall in price of broadband, bandwith and storage kept their vision going ( and a few million dollar investment eventually by Sequia capital) The YouTube revolution was just beginning... 

YouTube, founded in February 2005, created many timely innovations that made it successful in such a short time paving its way to an acquisition by Google for $1.65 billion dollars. (Creativity&Innovation 2011:122-123)

 

Just to show how many people do watch videos, this clip of a boy having his finger bitten by his brother has received 410,240,778 views and is rated by YouTube.com as the most viewed clip of all time. (www.youtube.com, 18/01/2012)

All in one computer?

The HP TouchSmart IQ770 is the first all in one PC on the market to boast a touch-screen display. This computer does for the computer what the iPhone has done for the mobile handset.

HP's kitchen friendly computer, this one is beautifully designed, and its touch screen makes it suitable for work on the counter top as well as a desktop. HP also supplies a software interface, optimised for use with the touch screen, that ties into news, weather, and calendar details, among other daily-living information.  (www.pcworld.com, 18/01/2012) 

I think this is a very innovate product. HP have taken the normal computer and transformed it into an all in one PC. This PC is innovate in the way that it saves space, so the user can put it in most spaces, allows the user to not use a mouse, if they are unable to use a mouse and it means there is not many cables as there usually is. 

Pocket Shower... A fantastic idea!

I think this is one of the best ideas ever! I wish this was around when I was at festivals and doing my Duke of Edinburgh!

A pocket shower is an instant shower in the middle of no-where. This tiny gizmo unfolds to reveal a high performance waterproof reserviour that holds a mighty ten litres of water. The black fabric will, given a sunny day, warm the water up in no time. You just string it up to a tree and open up the attached shower head and hey presto, you can now luxuriate in a seven minute shower!

I think this is one of the most innovative products, ive seen. This allows people out walking, camping, festivals and other out door events to have a shower without the hassle of waiting for a cold shower, in a dirty shower room! (www.designswan.com, 18/01/2012)

Supply Chain Management

Most companies compete in an environment characterised by:

• Turbulent and dynamic markets, where the customers requirements change rapidly and unforeseeable.
• Strongly segmented markets, where various customers have varying requirements for products and services.
• Market requirements for multiple product varieties and customisation of both products and services.
• Increasing customer demand for "experiences", and not merely physical products.
• Global competition, which forces companies to become faster, better and cheaper.

These are the challenges that have made supply chain management an important management toll and competitive parameter for many firms.(Jespersen&Skjottarsen 2005:9)

The supply chain encompasses all organisations and activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from the raw materials stage, through to the end user, as well as the associated information flows. Material and information flows both up and down the supply chain. Supply chain management is the integration and management of supply chain organisations and activities through co-operative organisational relationships, effective business process, and high levels of information sharing to create high performing value systems that provide member organisations or sustainable competitive advantages. (Jespersen&Skjottarsen 2005:11)

A generic supply chain model

A culture of innovation.

Culture underpins the way an organisation works every day, for any organisation pursuing a vision and strategy with a focus on innovation, creating and sustaining a culture to support it is a key foundation stone. For organisations trying to increase their focus on innovation, it is particularly important to recognise that without the reinforcement of changes in the underlying culture.

Vision
Having something clear to aim for, behind which to focus the culture, is just as important here as with any other management topic.
3 organisations that have helped people to understand their particular need for innovation by tightening their vision into something easier to understand. The AA focus on customer service through flexibility, Dyson on 'can do' and ITS Technology on commercialising the best technology. (Jolly 2003:15)

Symbols
Communicating the focus on innovation through the business is an imperative. The AA helped people to work  in the new ways by listening to their problems and providing them with the information they need to do thinks differently. The theme of innovation needs to be re-enforced in a broad range of symbols that communicate to all who came into contact with the organisations. Dyson emphasis on informal dress and its building design, not only communicate innovation visibly, but also enable innovation to take place through flexible working and freedom of movement, and associated ideas. The focus at ITS Technology on going beyond discussing R&D and turning communication to 'marshaling the value' is also significant. (Jolly 2003:16)

Kindle...Innovative?

The Kindle takes the e-book to the next level!
With its tight integration with Amazons book selling site, it has bought the e-book into the connected age by introducing free wireless connectivity to the e-commerce giant.
Electronic book readers are not new, Sony's experience with its reader shows that sales aren't always guaranteed. (www.pcworld.com, 17/01/2012)
Amazon have managed to take a relatively old, in terms of technology, and make it into something new and exciting. By introducing the connection with the Amazon website, e-books have now become something that everyone wants! Speaking from experience as me, my dad and my brother all received one at Christmas!

With the Kindle, it does have its downsides. With the sales of these, more and more people arent buying books which is going to eventually see the sales of books decline massively. It is the same as when CD players were introduced and the sales of tapes declined and now I think you can only buy tapes off sites such as eBay.com or in charity shops!

Druckers Principles of Innovation...

Drucker formulated his principles of innovation:
1) Analyze the sources of innovation for opportunities.
2) Determine customer needs, wants and expectations.
3) Innovation should be simple and focused.
4) Innovation should start small.
5) Innovation should aim at leadership.

According to Drucker, Innovations that are simple and focused should be directed toward a specific, clear and designed application, and should be focused on specific need that is satisfies and the specific end result that it produces. This is a reasonable requirement. If the consumer does not understand what the product does, the innovation product will not sell.

In addition to the principles, he also cited a number of things that should not be done relative to innovation.
1) Do not try to be clever. Drucker suggested that innovation not to be too sophisticated as "incompetence, after all, is the only thing in an abundant and never-failing supply.
2) Do not diversify or splinter efforts. Essentially, focus on the innovative effort and do not chase too many opportunities at the same time.
3) Do not innovate for the future. The innovation should have immediate application. However, he added, "Innovative opportunities sometimes have long lead times. In pharmaceutical research, 10 year of research and development work are by no means uncommon or particularly long. And yet no pharmaceutical company would dream of starting a research project for something which does not, if successful, have immediate application as a drug for heathcare needs that already exist"
(Swaim, 2011:93)

Ten types of innovation

www.doblin.com give their ten types of innovation. this framework can help to identify new opportunities in finance, process, offering and delivery. Companies that are able to simultaneously innovate across multiple innovation types will develop offerings that are more difficult to copy and that generate higher returns. 

 

Under finance there is the business model and networking. 

The business model is how an enterprise makes money. An example of this is Dell. Dell became a very successful by pioneering a business model of collecting money before their customers' PCs were assembled and shipped, resulting in net positive working capital of seven to eight days. 

Networking is the value chain and partnership. Sara Lee, with a large portfolio of consumer food brands, realised that its core competencies were consumer insight, brand management, marketing and distribution. It divested itself of manufacturing and supply chain partners.

Under process there are enabling process and core process. Enabling process is routine non-differentiating processes often outsourced to others. Starbucks is an example of this. Starbucks can deliver its profitable store and coffee experience to customers because it offfers better-than-market compensation and employment benefits to its store workers- usually part time , educated, professional and responsive people. 

Core process is differentiating proprietary process. Walmart do this, Walmart grew profitably through core process innovations such as real time inventory management systems, aggressive volume, pricing and delivery contracts with merchandise providers, and systems that helped store managers identify changing buyer behaviours and respond quickly with new pricing and merchandising. 

Under Offering there are 3 types, product performance, product system and service. 

Product performance is the basic features and functions. The Oxo good grips peeler was not only sharp, but felt great in the hand and looked well. Even though it cost a lot more, it was a smash success, and transformed product design in the entire kitchen gadget category. This an example of consumers buy a product on its performance rather than the price.  Product system is structured offering with an array of tailor able, integrated components. Microsoft bundled a variety of productivity enhancement software applications into a single "suite". This product systemisation helped them dominate the software category. Service is assistance provided to prospects and customers. An international flight on any airline will get you to your intended destination. A flight on Singapore Airlines, however, nearly makes you forget your flying at all, with the most attentive, respectful, and pampering pre flight, in flight and post flight services you can imagine.  

The last 3 types are channel, brand and customer experience. Channel is conduits through which offerings reach customers. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has developed such a deep understanding of its customers that it knows just where to be, stores, magazines, online etc, to drive huge sales volumes from a relatively small set of offerings. Brand is how value is communicated to customers. Virgin has build a strong position in many categories, including air travel, mobile phones and financial services by setting higher expectations for brand attitude and experience than was previously the category norm, and in finding new behaviours to dramatise their youthful and fun loving persona. The last type is customer experience, all aspects of customer interaction with a company and its brands. Harley Davidson has created a worldwide community of millions of bike owners, based more on the experience that bike ownership make possible for them that on the features and functions of their bikes.

Dells Innovation House

Since the first Dell PC was introduced in 1986, Dell has continued to shape the industry by breaking new ground and pioneering critical developments in home, small business and enterprise computing. Dell's research and development (R&D) efforts now span the globe, driven by some of the industry's foremost product designers and engineers. At the core of Dell's innovation approach, however, remains an unwavering commitment to deliver new and better solutions that directly address customer needs.

Many innovations begin in-house, led by a global team of top engineers, product designers and technical experts. Others begin as a team effort with Dell's strategic partners. The mission is to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions that meet today's real-life customer challenges and work seamlessly in existing environments and with other products.

Dell is uniquely positioned to impact industry trends. We maintain strong internal development capabilities. We partner, rather than compete, with top industry technology suppliers and original development manufacturers. We steer enabling industry standards and technologies through industry groups and strategic partners.  In this way, Dell spurs innovation and delivers value to customers

(www.dell.com, 04/01/2012)

I think the most innovative thing that Dell has done is the interchangeable lids. Dell have managed to take a simple laptop and innovated it so that there is a style for everyone.  

The lids start at £29.99 and there are a range of colours from blues to black to red to pink, along with flower print lids and checked lids. There is literally one for everyone! Dell are the only company that does interchangeable lids for laptops. Many other companies are selling different coloured laptop cases but not ones that can be changed. 

If I did like Dell computers I would defiantly buy one of the laptops with the purple lid!