Innovation is not about only creating something from nothing but also about arranging and rearranging existing ideas to create new solutions

Of late, I have been thinking about innovation; the buzzword these days, which everyone seems to agree, is the key to the future. Every other day we discuss how we are going to focus on innovation to drive business growth and increase our bottom-line. We talk about increased investment in R&D, consumer research, market studies etc to generate ‘breakthrough ideas’. We discuss how, to stay competitive, we have to be innovative and come up with new features, products, and business solutions.

However, the fundamental question is – do we really understand innovation? If we do, then do we have an innovation strategy to pursue? Innovate for what problems?

What is innovation?

Whenever we think of innovation, we tend to think of an amazing product or something involving the application of science and technology such as unmanned drones, wireless chargers, ultra slim LEDs etc. At least I used to think this way until very recently when I started noticing that it is not only about new and improved ideas but also about looking at the same problem from different perspectives and coming up with novel solutions.

Ideas are everywhere – some are new, some are old but the important thing is to recognise the saliency of ideas and to implement them. Kodak and Xerox folded not because that they did not have great ideas but because they failed to recognize those ideas and hence never pursued them.

Also read: True innovation can be a puzzle, but these 3 things can help you find it

So, what is innovation? Dictionary definitions typically refer innovation to “a new method, idea or product”, and emphasize the novelty aspect. However, I believe that the newness of the idea should not restrict the gamut of innovation. At times, the application of existing ideas to solve new problems is more innovative than the idea itself. Typically, many ideas that are classified as new have their genesis in old ideas only. Society develops by drawing inspiration and by building on the existing ideas; just a few of us are gifted to come up with purely new ideas. Innovation is not about only creating something from nothing but it is also about arranging and rearranging existing ideas to create new solutions.

Let me illustrate this with a personal experience:

Earlier, I was associated with a consumer good company, which created the men’s grooming market in India. The company was the first to launch fairness cream that was exclusively for men. The product was hugely successful, and its success led many other companies to enter the market with a range of male grooming products. Now if we think of it, the idea of a fairness cream was not new as for years the companies were already offering fairness cream to women. The thought of targeting it to men also came from the available research data that showed sizeable users of women’s fairness cream were in fact men.

To its credit, the company only had taken the risk and experiment with the idea, which eventually led to the creation of a new product category. Therefore, the application of available resources in a creative manner can also be termed as innovative.

However, If we have to define Innovation in straight possible term then the following definitions are quite useful:

Innovation is turning an idea into a solution that adds value from a customer’s perspective.
Innovation means creating value from ideas.
Creativity is thinking of something new. Innovation is the implementation of something new.
Innovation is the fundamental way the company brings constant value to their customers business or life and consequently their shareholders and stakeholders.

One point that the above definitions do make clear is that innovation is not only about an idea. It is about the implementation of that idea and in turn creating value. An idea that doesn’t create a value is not an innovation.

Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business Professor who promulgated the idea of disruptive innovation, also proposed that disruptive companies are not necessarily characterised by having new or superior ideas. In fact, their ideas or value propositions are often inferior to the market leaders but they are good enough to bring value to a specific set of customers.

Why so much noise about innovation?

It is only relatively recently that innovation has pervaded not only boardroom discussions but also our daily lives. A record total of 233,000 patents filed were filed globally in year 2016, a growth of 7.3% over the previous year (as per World Intellectual Property Organization).

Also read: You do not need to choose a methodology to innovate

Today, innovation is exploding primarily because computers and technology are driving the intersection of different industry domain. This intersection, driven by Artificial Intelligence, Cloud and Mobile computing, Robotics, and Virtual Reality, is slowly starting to shape up our lifestyle. Internet and the open source platforms have made it easier for us to share data and build up on each other’s ideas.

The concept of venture capital, innovation labs, etc., have made the resources available that encourage innovation. Companies like Google or 3M are letting employees spend work time to pursue the ideas that have potential to bring innovation.

YouTube is a great place to be innovative. Lots of users are making use of this platform innovatively to monetize their content. The channel has become a launch platform for aspiring filmmakers, designers, artists, students, content creators to create a very different genre of content and reach out to specific customers (here viewers)

I find the idea of some of the YouTube videos not unique but those videos are innovative in sense that they serve their content differently, which adds value to the viewers. These videos might be classified in the genre of gaming, political, cooking or entertainment but their content delivery is not very intuitive.

PewDiePie – The channel by a 25yr old Swedish where he posts videos of him playing video games while making funny comments on the action as he plays. Unlike other gaming channels, the focus of PewDiePie videos is not to give a walkthrough of the video game but to express his reactions and funny comment on the game settings or its screenplay. He is the most subscribed user on YouTube with 54 million followers and he earns millions of dollars in revenue!
Country Foods – There are enough Food channel on YouTube already but some of them are quite innovative. One of such channel is by world’s oldest youtuber – a106yr old grandmother! Her channel focuses on how to cook food in a traditional way with fresh ingredients, the way it is done in Indian villages. Her grandson, against the rustic rural backdrop, earthen pots and clay ovens, shoots the videos. The grandmother has close to a million followers.
Inside Stories – Finally, there is a youtube user, who has thousands of followers because every week he takes up an episode from a popular TV crime show and investigates the original story behind it. In his channel, he would dedicatedly compile news articles, media files, original police reports and interviews to cover the true event that inspired the TV show.

What is common across these examples is that the simple (perhaps not novel) idea has been executed properly and, judging by the increasing number of subscribers on their channel, is creating value for the viewers.

One of the best examples of non-novel innovation that I have come across was the rebranding of Kraft’s Diamond Shreddies (a square-shaped breakfast cereal) in 2008. In order to regain consumer interest in the brand in the face of diminishing sales, the brand’s creative agency launched a campaign that simply involved reframing the breakfast cereal’s square-shape as “diamond-shaped”. The campaign led 18% uplift in sales while the product itself remained unchanged. “Diamond Shreddies” remains an intriguing example of the way in which brands can add intangible value that consumers buy.

Can we all become innovators?

If innovation is not restricted to the generation of new ideas only, can we incorporate the culture of innovation in our daily lives? More importantly, can we train ourselves to become innovators?

In 2000, Harvard Business Review published an article by Clayton Christensen where he highlighted the five main attributes of being an innovator. Clayton published his findings after studying the habits of 25 innovative entrepreneurs and surveying more than 3,000 executives and 500 individuals who had started innovative companies or invented new products. He highlighted that by cultivating five skills namely – observation, association, experimentation, questioning and networking we can train ourselves to become innovators.

I would say that innovation is a marriage of ideas. We do not constantly need to try to come up with new ideas from the scratch. This would be too difficult and time consuming, if not impossible. If we learn to combine ideas successfully then we can become innovators.

Simple solutions for big problems or business opportunities can be highly innovative.

The launch of shampoo in sachets was a big idea when it was first launched in India, as many people, especially in the rural areas were unable to purchase big and expensive shampoo bottles. Later, that simple idea inspired and revolutionised many industries and gave rise to single serve, ready to consume, economically priced product packaging.

Work environment and office culture often play an important role in helping companies become innovative. Google is known as an innovative company because it has been able to instill a culture of innovation in its work style. This has helped Google to launch many innovative products. Cut to the men’s fairness company (mentioned in the opening part), there was no strong culture of innovation and hence many other opportunities (of launching innovative products) were missed as the product ideas remained in the idea file while the rival companies successfully launched products based on the similar concepts.

Eventually, a company can become innovative by:

Making innovation a process and a way of daily working culture
Spending more on experimenting with the existing ideas rather than focussing exclusively on generating new ideas.
Promoting open communication and idea sharing across departments.
Being observant to innovation in other industries.
Understanding that innovation is not about idea generation only but also about successful implementation of those ideas.

Having an innovation strategy

Since we can train ourselves to be innovators, we must continuously engage in the process of innovation. However, we must be careful, as the process of innovation is not unique and there is no one process that is common for all problems. Ideas from one industry can definitely be a source of innovation in other industry but their implementation will probably be always different. Similarly, a company cannot have just one innovation strategy, as it will have to face different type of challenges during different stages of its lifecycle.

Greg Satell, a popular author, speaker, and innovation advisor, in his book Mapping Innovation, mentions that the same innovation strategy does not work on all problems, as different problems require a different kind of innovative thinking. He created a two-dimensional matrix to help companies identify the right type of innovation strategy to solve a problem.

Based on how well the business problem is defined and how well the business domain is defined, there are four main zones of Innovation – Breakthrough Innovation, Disruptive Innovation, Sustaining Innovation and Basic Research.

Closing remarks

Innovation provides a formidable competitive advantage. An innovative company finds different ways to engage with its customers. Nevertheless, innovation should by no means be restricted only to coming up with clever ideas; it must add value to the user – tangible or intangible. Innovation, if promoted as a business discipline, will not require huge investments or capital resources.

The word ‘innovation’ is not important as long as we train ourselves to see things differently. To sum it up, here is an interesting quote – “Innovation by any other name is just as innovative”

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