#disruption

Krishnan on Innovation

Aug 1
6 min

Different strokes of innovation

What can we learn from innovations in photography? Taking a photograph of your little daughter cutting cake is a breeze today, whip out your phone and you are ready to shoot a nice picture and post it on Instagram. However, it wasn’t so easy in the past. Photography was a specialist business. You needed to be a professional with large equipment and specialist processing techniques to take photographs. This made it expensive and a luxury Kodak changed it with the films and the

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Jul 28
3 min

Is innovation a process or an outcome?

Why do we need an innovation strategy? During my conversations on innovation, I have come across two common questions. Isn't innovation a process? Why is innovation strategy required when we already have a business strategy? In this blog, I have attempted to clarify these two questions. Is innovation not a process? Innovation is most categorically an outcome! The ISO 56000 standard refers to innovation as a new or changed entity, realizing or redistributing value. It includes

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Jul 20
4 min

Need for open Innovation in the Indian auto industry

Henry Chesbrough wrote one of the defining research articles on open innovation in 2003 (MIT Sloan Management Review, April 2003). Unfortunately, the industry hasn’t internalized and adopted this approach in India so far. This blog explores Chesbrough’s original work in the context of the Indian auto industry. Chesbrough defined 3 broad roles and identified 8 different types of innovator profiles. The three broad roles are innovation funder, generator and commercializing idea

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Jul 4
4 min

Ideation Sprint

Ideation is not equal to creativity Shark tank is a wonderful television program and seems to be inspiring a lot of corporates to emulate it. But as things go, its absolutely the wrong way to drive innovation in an organization. Surprised? Shark tank is the best example of a linear approach to ideation and innovation. You evaluate a number of ideas and select one of them or a few of them based on the "sharks" judgement of the value. Unfortunately, in most organizations, there

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Jun 30
2 min

Innovation Diagnostic

What is stopping you from innovating? Analysis of data from over 5000 organizations that have taken the InnoSurvey(R) reveal common 8 blockers to innovation The organisation either lacks a clear innovation strategy or it misses clear goals and direction leading to a lack of faith in innovation Large organizations tend to prioritize current business and current year over long-term thinking They fear failure and avoid dealing with uncertainty and risky projects (and innovations

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Jun 30
4 min

The 3 Horizon Approach to Growth

Do you have a portfolio of initiatives that cover both today, the future and the space in between? The three horizons of growth was proposed by Baghai, Coley and White and published in a book The alchemy of growth (1999). It is a framework that has served well over the years. Bill Sharpe presents the three horizon framework as a futures tool, a tool to drive transformative change (Three Horizons: The patterning of hope, Bill Sharpe (2013)). In a world which is facing massive

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Jun 29
5 min

Using scenario planning to create your future

The speed of change, especially climate-related, means that the future of the planet and companies are changing very fast. How does your future look? Scenario planning provides the answer. Can you predict the future? Most likely we will fail. But we could always prepare for possible future scenarios. Just like Royal Dutch/Shell did in the 70s. In the late 60s and 70s, Shell developed a method called "scenario planning". Planners carried out in-depth analyses of possible futur

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Jun 14
3 min

Do you have a narrative for innovation?

Most successes, if they have to be recounted, start with a story that goes "once upon a time ...". Here is my little story. In 1997 I was offered a role that I didn’t apply for. I visited Castrol as a customer from Ford, one of the QS9000 audit firms that invited us to witness their QS 9000 audit. At the end of the audit, I was explaining to the Castrol leadership the reasoning behind some of the requirements, that Castrol was not meeting. At the end of the audit, Mr Ram Savo

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Jan 27
4 min

What's keeping CEO's up at night: Insights from C-Suite Challenge 2021

2021 saw the developed world and some of the developing countries succeed with the massive rollout of vaccination to deal with the COVID pandemic. The end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 is bringing renewed optimism that the worst of the pandemic might be over and we are entering the phase where the pandemic turns endemic; milder infections that can be managed without lockdowns and disruptions. In this context, the C-suite challenge 2021 report from The Conference Board pro

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Jan 18
4 min

Ensure your offerings are relevant in the market

I was recently asked for advice by a friend regarding buying a DSLR camera. He was getting a wonderful offer. He always wanted to take photographs like the pros with big lenses. After going through the needs, we concluded that despite the DSLR being a fantastic offer, it made little sense to buy. A great product at bargain pricing, but completely irrelevant to the customer needs. The digital camera industry is going through such a transformation phase. We have manufacturers p

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Dec 14, 2021
4 min

Doing Things Right and Doing the Right Thing

In 2006, Nokia commenced production of its mobile phones in India with a lot of fanfare. They brought in the best manufacturing expertise, implemented lean manufacturing, had an excellent supply chain process. Very soon Motorola would set up a factory very close to them as well. It was indeed a moment of pride for Tamil Nadu and Chennai. However, Apple, a company with no record in the mobile phone business, was set about disrupting the industry. In 2007, they launched the iPh

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Nov 15, 2021
3 min

Puppetry of Innovation - Distinguishing features of innovators who drive growth through innovation

Puppetry remains a fascinating art, a thoroughly enjoyed event that has few masters. You marvel at the skill of the artist in manipulating strings and wonder what sort of genius it takes to do it all. A master puppeteer will tell you that it’s all a science and not sorcery. It takes years of practice, understanding how the strings work when it’s pulled and mastering the angles and science behind the strings. But then you also require the ability to build a great story that th

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Nov 15, 2021
3 min

Puppetry of innovation - Introduction

Puppetry remains one of the fascinating art, a thoroughly enjoyed event that has few masters. You marvel at the skill of the artist in manipulating strings and wonder what sort of genius it takes to do it all. A master puppeteer will tell you that it’s all a science and not sorcery. It takes years of practice, understanding how the strings work when it’s pulled and mastering the angles and science behind the strings. But then you also require the ability to build a great stor

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Nov 12, 2021
3 min

Gathering New Ideas to Drive Growth

When I see the advertisement from one of the online investment platforms like Groww etc., I wonder why this didn’t come from an established player. I am sure boards of their competitors must be wondering why they didn’t introduce the new product or service that has hit the market from an unknown company. I am certain that these organizations spend time on strategy, generate new growth ideas, have “innovation” as a priority, have a digital transformation agenda etc. Yet, break

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Sep 14, 2021
4 min

Strategy and Strategy Making

The CEO of one of my SME clients remarked at the end of our engagement that for the first time he realized strategy could be a process! Coming from a person who had an MBA from an IIM and one who was looked up to by many other SME owners, it surprised me. Later when I became a member of a network of SME owners, I was far better prepared to explain my work. Many would ask what do you mean by strategy and strategy making? To put it simplistically, strategy is the decision that

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Sep 8, 2021
4 min

Exploring innovation opportunities through sprints

Insulin to treat diabetes had been in use since 1920s. While there was constant product development, including the massive one of genetically engineered “human insulin”, the massive transformation happened when the customer experience was addressed through the Novopen. A women doctor, a mother of a diabetic child, was the driving force to the discovery. Fed up with the poor experience of administering correct dosage and the associated difficulties, her unflagging collaboratio

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Aug 18, 2021
6 min

Welcome Ola S1!

Lessons for corporates on innovation Ola, a company that started as a copy of Uber, launched its electric scooters on Independence day. Now what is interesting is the size of the ambition and the feature set of the vehicle. Plenty of people will say that it is early days and Ola has to prove the quality and reliability of the product and pull off the volume projection. It’s worth reminding that people were similarly sceptical of Reliance when it ventured into oil refining and

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Jul 15, 2021
4 min

The dangers of a lack of innovation agenda

I was lucky to be in the audience and hear Sridhar Vembu of Zoho talk about the priorities of Indian companies and the nations as such. Sridhar has led Zoho to become one of the leading lights of Indian software companies, not because of cost efficiency, but due to product innovation. His company outperforms Indian software giants on value-added per employee, a testimony of its innovation prowess. Sridhar contends that our nation is slipping as businesses aren’t focused on th

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Jun 25, 2021
2 min

Disrupt your own business!

Magnus Penker has a habit of saying that all Hollywood stories have one of two themes; a stranger comes and changes things or you go on a journey and change things! Innovation is very much like this story. You can wait for someone to come and disrupt your business or you can go on a journey and create the disruption. You have the choice to play the victim or be the protagonist. The choice is yours! We find that it is not very difficult to become the disrupter. All it takes is

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Jun 24, 2021
3 min

Strategy and Innovation

Traditional approach to strategy management in business organizations refer strategy to mean corporate strategy (“What business should we be in”) and business strategy (“how shall we compete in this business”) Other references are classified as functional strategies. However, we are discovering that innovation and innovation strategy is now a very critical part of corporate and business strategy. The pace with which markets and businesses are getting disrupted, the lifecycle

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Krishnan on Innovation

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