Blog Category: Innovation

Most companies measure innovation results. Few measure innovation capabilities.

489-Capabilities

Do you know if your company is improving key capabilities? Understanding customers’ needs, assessing competitive alternatives, creating data-driven value propositions, etc.? A race team that just counts wins—instead of pit crew times and engine torque—stops winning. Understand the capabilities that drive innovation and start measuring them.

More in Chapter 9 of Business Builders by Dan Adams

Got cool technology? Great. Just test it silently with customers.

486

Avoid “technology push.” But should you just leave your technology quivering on the lab bench? Hardly. Conduct customer interviews without mentioning your technology. If customer outcomes match your technology… wonderful! Otherwise, look for different technology (for this market), or look for another market (for this technology).

More in 2-minute video at 21. Give your hypotheses the silent treatment

Validating hypotheses with customers may have been OK once. When fedoras were worn.

482-Fedora

In many areas of life, there’s the “old way” and the “new way.” Does your company still develop “hypotheses” internally, and then meet with customers to validate them? This can lead to confirmation bias for you and stifled yawns for your customers. In the “new way,” you start by uncovering customer needs, not by internally “ideating” your solutions.

More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B

Lean Startup is fine for B2B… but don’t skip this extra “Learn” step.

470-Learning-before-Hypothesizing

The “Build-Measure-Learn” cycle in Lean Startup begins with a hypothesis, and is great for B2C. End-consumers can seldom tell you what will amuse them or increase their sense of self-worth. But knowledgeable B2B customer can predict their desired outcomes. So start with a “Learn” pre-step. Customers will tell you all you need if you know how to ask.

More in white paper, Lean Startup for B2B (page 3)

Product development is a footrace… either a customer-reactive or a market-proactive footrace.

462-Business-Footrace

Picture this: A customer tells your sales rep what they want, who hands it off to your R&D. This clever customer tells your competitors the same thing. Terrific. If more than one supplier crosses the finish line, you can forget any price premium. Try this: You choose the race conditions by targeting an attractive market, and exploring its needs better than competitors. This is one reason why market-facing innovation is superior to customer reactive innovation.

More in 2-minute video at 16. Segment by markets for innovation

For successful innovation, you need to “get out” more.

461-Get-Out-More

It’s risky to incrementalize… but “great hope” projects often absorb huge resources and end with a whimper. What’s the answer? Get out more. Spend more time in customers’ worlds to reduce commercial risk. And reduce technical risk through open innovation, tapping into external technologies. You can’t thrive today without external insight. (Hmmm… “exsight”?)

More in 2-minute video at 42. Beware of New Product Incrementalism

Innovators should understand that uncertainty is different than risk.

459-Uncertainty-Ahead

If you’re asked to cross an unfamiliar chasm, would it be risky? Hard to say. Until you learn if you’ll face a bridge or a tightrope, you can’t assess risk (probability). You’re just uncertain. Many companies fear risk in an unfamiliar market, when they should map out a plan to reduce uncertainty. This is especially easy to do in B2B markets.

More in white paper, www.UnfamiliarMarkets.com (page 2)

Avoid the commodity death spiral at all costs.

453-Commodity-Death-Spiral

Imagine your business stopped innovating, your profits declined, and it is now budgeting time. To salvage next year, you’ll likely cut long-term costs, e.g. R&D or marketing, further reducing your ability to create high-value products. Next year, you’ll have even fewer options. This results in death or irrelevancy. If you’ve started this spiral, pull out quickly.

More in 2-minute video at 9. Avoid the commodity death spiral

Don’t like what’s coming out of your extruder? Better check what’s going into your feed hopper.

452-Extruder-Hopper

Most financial business reviews are like standing around the output die, exhorting the extruder to do better. But nobody’s checking the feed hopper. It looks like an intelligent meeting, discussing gross margins, price increases and growth rates. But these were predetermined years earlier, largely by your new products, what you put into the feed hopper.

More in 2-minute video at 10. Extend your time horizon

Don’t hire more R&D resources until you shift existing personnel “up and out.”

439-Scientists-Getting-Out

You shift resources “up” by investing manpower earlier in understanding market needs. This lets you be more successful later in developing solutions. You shift resources “out” when employees spend less time talking to each other… and more time directly engaging customers, through interviews and tours. Develop new skills for this, and create a new company culture.

More in white paper, www.catchtheinnovationwave.com (page 6)

It is unreasonable to expect sales calls to drive your innovation efforts.

438-Sales-Visit

Your sales force should play a key role in innovation-focused interviews. But not by themselves. Unaccompanied sales reps seldom attract all the right customer contacts, and they’re not rewarded for the lengthy time horizons required. Besides, market-facing innovation requires central coordination, since a single sales territory won’t contain all the needed prospects. However, your sales force can play a critical role when it also becomes a learning force.

More in 2-minute video at 47. Make your sales force a learning force

Most companies can double their R&D resources… for free.

436-Double-Resources

Want to add employees who know your technologies and markets, can start work tomorrow, and cost nothing more? It’s easy: Just kill the dead-end projects that tie up half your resources. Free your people to work on projects your customers actually care about. It’s not hard to learn which projects to kill. In fact, strong project teams will halt weak projects on their own. Many will do this using the data-driven evidence that comes from market satisfaction gaps.

More in white paper, www.marketsatisfactiongaps.com