Purposeful innovations
The DO’s
1. Purposeful systematic innovation begins with the analysis of opportunities. All the sources of innovative opportunity should be systematically analysed and studied. It is not enough to be alert to them. The search has to be organised and must be done on a regular, systematic basis.
2. Innovation is both conceptual and perceptual. The second imperative of innovation is therefore to go out to look, to ask and to listen. The innovation should be put into the market in the form people will accept it.
3. To be effective, an innovation must be simple and focussed. It should do only one thing, otherwise it confuses people. If it were not simple, it would not work. It should be focused on a specific need that it satisfies or on a specific end result that it produces.
4. An effective innovation must be small but grand. The necessary changes can be made only if the scale is small and the requirements of people, money and other resources fairly modest.
5. A successful innovation requires leadership. Otherwise it is unlikely to be innovative enough and capable of establishing itself.
The DON’Ts1. Don’t try to be clever. Innovative products will be used by ordinary human beings. Anything too clever, whether in design or execution, is almost bound to fail.
2. Do not diversify and do not try to do too many things at once. Innovations that stray are likely to become diffused. They remain ideas and do not become innovations.
3. Do not try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present. Unless there is an immediate application innovations cannot be successful.
Innovation is work. It requires knowledge and ingenuity. It makes great demands on an entrepreneur’s diligence, persistence and commitment. If these are lacking, then no amount of talent, ingenuity, or knowledge will be useful. So to succeed, innovations must build on their strengths. Entrepreneurs should choose an innovation that fits them and they are temperamentally attuned to . Finally innovations have to be close to the market, focused on the market and market driven in all respects. Since many ideas are required (as some ideas may have to be dropped along the way as they may not be viable), an entrepreneur may use one or more of the following methods to generate new ideas:1. Mind storming – It is a technique where the entrepreneur or future entrepreneur writes a problem on a piece of paper and lets his mind wander over the factors of production such as men, material, machines, market and money. One factor affects the other and may lead to a creative solution.
2. Brainstorming – Whenever a group of people is available for idea generation it is an excellent method to generate as many ideas as possible and then focus on a few chosen ideas.
3. Focus group – A moderator or facilitator leads a group of people through an open and in-depth discussion. The facilitator guides the discussion towards creative ideas.
4. Reverse brain storming – Criticism is not allowed in brain storming but it is allowed in reverse brain storming. The technique is based on asking questions such as “in how many ways can this idea fail?” Then appropriate ways of overcoming these failures are devised.
5. Value analysis – This technique develops methods of maximising value to the entrepreneur by reducing costs without affecting performance, appearance, reliability and quality of the product. In value analysis the ideas are regularly developed, evaluated and refined.
Entrepreneur brings about changes in the use of resources in a society in which they set up new ventures, which shift the resources into areas of higher productivity and greater yields. Innovation involves problem solving and entrepreneur is a problem solver. An entrepreneur does things in a new and a better way. An inventor produces ideas and an innovator implements them for economic gain. An inventor adds to the knowledge of the society while an innovator adds to their satisfaction by means of newer and better products and services. It is an innovator who commercially exports an invention. A sound business opportunity is the result of appropriate interaction between the need of the society, capability of an entrepreneur and resources available in the environment. The idea generated needs its conversion into exact entrepreneurial / business opportunities by the interaction of the need, capability and resources.
|
|
