Innovation...


Should We Innovate or Think About How to Innovate?

I am frequently asked the same question by clients and non-clients alike: what’s the best process for innovating? If I had a single, correct answer for this, I’d be retired and living comfortably atop Russian Hill in San Francisco in a penthouse with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and a private chef at my beck and call.

I’m still doing my own cooking in a view-less kitchen.

Because there doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut answer to this question, many food companies have put in place a task force to study the myriad innovation processes, or to draft a perfect, customized process for their company. This is akin to commissioning A Study of Industry Best-Practices on Large Cruise Ship Evacuations while standing aboard the sinking Titanic.

Instead of spending valuable innovation resources to study how to innovate, why not just innovate?! Gather a group of five of the smartest, most experienced people you know. Brainstorm a few ideas. Put them in front of your target customers and listen to their reactions. Go back to the ideas, revise them, improve them, kill the dogs, and move forward. It doesn’t have to be rocket science!

If there were one single best practice for the food industry, we’d all be using it. But the reality is, there isn’t one. A process for developing a new single-serve beverage may be entirely wrong for developing a family-sized, frozen entrée.

I liken this innovation conundrum to food and beverage manufacturing.

You could build a beautiful, high-speed production line that makes machine-rolled burritos (something the industry has never figured out how to do!), packages them with microwave-safe film, and uses the latest technology to blast freeze them.

That’s great. But it only works for frozen burritos! What if the market changes and no one wants frozen burritos anymore? You’re sitting on an expensive asset that’s probably not even fully depreciated. You will be loath to abandon this dying product format—regardless of how dire the frozen burrito future looks.

So, why spend time building a customized tool for creating new food products in your current category and channel? The next big area of opportunity for your company may not take this shape! Wouldn’t it have been better to spend the time and money you spent crafting a process on crafting new ideas?

I’ve heard anecdotally that clients who’ve instituted rigid innovation processes like Stage-Gate® have been stifled by the process. I’ve also heard from clients who have implemented their own new product development process. The results vary from huge success to unmitigated failure.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do your homework and see what others out there are doing. I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be done in lieu of pursuing ideas that the smart people you hire (internal or external) come up with.





Posted: Sat - August 13, 2005 at 03:35 PM        

©