Is Innovation a Siren's call for your company? « Musings from an Independent Marketing Provocateur Musings from an Independent Marketing Provocateur

In recent months you can’t pick up any business-related article without being beaten with the “I” word – Innovation. Like the glorious “e” word that IBM unleashed over a decade ago, every C-level executive is falling over him/herself to initiate an innovation culture within their organizations.

A quick scan of HBR shows no less than 5500 articles on the subject; all with grand titles like “Structure Your Global Team for Innovation” and “Confronting the Pain of Innovation” and dire warnings like “Five Ways to Ruin Your Innovation Process”

Yet, in the midst of this Innovation furor, are companies missing the wood from the trees? With so much stacked against success is it a worthwhile pursuit? Or is Innovation merely a siren’s call doomed to lure your corporation aground?

I’m a huge proponent of Innovation but my fear is that executives – and their legion of external advisors, brand agencies, consultants and experts – often seem more intent on pushing category redefining innovation rather than meaningful incremental change.

Innovation with a big, huge “I” versus a small “i”

To that end, a friend recently asked a really pointed question. “What if all the energies expended trying to redefine categories and innovate business models was just invested in making decent products and services? Wouldn’t all of us be much happier?”

I think he has a point.

Personally I’d rather my ISP wasn’t innovating around 4G delivery when it still takes them 25 minutes to answer my service call or repeated phone calls to ensure they get my billing right. Or, a Bank innovating my retail experience “to change the way customers are presented with choice, knowledge and advice” when their mortgage rate is 2.25% higher than competitive rates I can get in the market.

Innovation is absolutely an imperative for companies to evolve, grow and remain relevant. However, the popular press has created a business mythology around companies like Apple, Google, BMW and the like. A mythology, like pots of gold and rainbows, that lures companies to chase projects they’re ill-equipped to bring to life, that they don’t have the structures, process and resources to activate nor, that their customers are really seeking.

Innovation is an area worthy of investment. However, with so many areas crying out for your attention is this really the Bright Shiny Object you should be steering your ship toward?

Do you believe little “i” innovation can be more meaningful than category-redefining Innovation?

Tags: accountability, Consumerism, customer service, Strategy

Norm Melamed

“Innovate or die”.
Taking care of the details, but aspire to stretch a little everyday.
Here’s to the Crazy Ones… the misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers….
The world is filled with doers. The world needs more thinkers.
Daniele Fiandaca

Hi Hilton, think it totally depends on your definition of innovation. I like to think of it as ‘finding better ways to solve business problems’. It seems you are assuming that innovation can only be used to build new products. However from my perspective it can equally be used to help get your billing right or get your mortgage rate down. I don’t think the two things are mutually exclusive. Innovation has always been at the heart of the best businesses – all I think that is being recognised is that innovation needs time and space, and by putting in a title, you can ring fence that time and space (but as a Head of Innovation, I would say that). Irrespective, hope you’re well
HiltonB1

Daniele – absolutely fair. Innovation has IMHO become more amorphously defined as it has gained more mainstream cachet. Suddenly “everything” is an innovation. I totally buy your definition as that leads to a very pragmatic, rigorous and studious application of innovation. Perhaps the deeper issue is that fixing an internal billing process is less “sexy” than building iTunes. Its the allure of wanting to achieve the latter where many companies and agencies come unstuck.
HiltonB1

Norm – loved the homage to “Think Different” and you’re right. As i replied to Daniele, its about ensuring that ‘taking care of the details” is given as much love, attention, investment as the sexier “moonshot” attempts which so often fail. And, in failing, give innovation and innovative thinkers a bad rap
http://www.interacter.co.uk/ Neil Hopkins

Great topic! I’ve got a lot in my streams about I(i)nnovation as well.

You’re totally correct to suggest that there are two forms of innovation. One should be taken as course of business – trying to make things better with a series of small improvements – and the other should be taken at a more strategic level – i.e. the big mega-bucks brand implemented, customer winning, era defining Innovation.

Innovative doesn’t always mean good, however – and I think that a lot of first-to-market companies/products forget this.
They’ll go for the cool factor, safe in the knowledge that the fashionistas will forgive rough edges as they enhance their social capital with the next BSO.

However, when this is not backed up by a decent product, or a product agile enough to evolve from rough to sparkling (and thus mass market) in a single generation (or, preferably, a .1 generation), failure is sure to result.

I look at this meme-de-jour in a different way.

The market is uncertain.
Consumers are fickle.

Innovative products are therefore shiny and alluring to magpie purchasers (thus shoring up the market for a moment).

But, under this, people are worried about their jobs.

Small incremental innovations aren’t sexy. Saving two sheets of paper every time you print isn’t going to win you the CEO’s Golden Fob Watch Award.

The bigger you can go, the better for getting yourself noticed and clambering to the top of the Most Needed Employee List.

Cynical? Hell yeah. Realistic? Probably.

So, to answer your final questions, small innovations will lead to a cascade of improvements across the product, and across the brand. This gives them immense meaning to the business, something which isn’t always replicated by the big Innovation.

Is Innovation a Siren’s call for your company?

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