Business Innovation eBook & Definitive Guide on Creativity

As Twitter is to consumer, oGoing is to business

oGoing is Live! Introducing oGoing : "Twitter for Enterprise"

Launching oGoing - What's going on?

Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business

Marketing Innovation drives Market Leadership

Intuit - Creating Innovations in Software Industry

3M - The Innovation Machine

P&G - Procter & Gamble - Innovating & Growing with Business Model

Strategic Innovation at Deloitte - The "Apple" of Services Innovation

How Successful Is Your New Innovation? Measuring Business Innovation Success

Creating Team Innovation - Chapter One

Innovation Quotes

Over 3,000 Professionals Joined India Business Network

Learn How Apple Innovates - The #1 Innovative Company

The Biggest Innovation of 2009 - Accepting Nominations for Best Innovations of 2009

Business Innovation Tool Kit - eBook, Insights, Annual Report

Business Innovation Resource Kit - eBook, Guide, Insights, Report

Launching SenVet - New Social Network for Seniors and Veterans

India Business Network - Over 2,000 Professionals Joined

2010-01-31T21:15:05.537-08:00

Business Innovation eBook & Definitive Guide on Creativity

Innovation eBook used by 550+ innovative companies worldwide - eBook Best Seller (deployed at Nokia, EDS, J&J, Pepsi, HP, many more...)

Innovation eBook and Definitive Guide is a 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Proctor and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Frito Lay, IBM, Nike, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, Dell, Tata, Intel and more. With pertinent articles from this award-winning Creativity And Innovation Driving Business Blog, this Faculty eBook provides real-world examples on how the Top Innovators innovate and grow their business successfully time and again, especially during economic cycles. Creativity And Innovation in Business is a definitive guide and resource that will help you unblock creativity, uncover and create game-changing innovations, and make exponential business growth a reality.

"I teach Applied Creativity and Innovation for a College near Toronto, Canada. I gave my business students an assignment to work with one of the top 10 innovative companies and to research/report on what makes them innovative, type of innovative challenges, benefits, etc. Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary document that they used for their work." - Business School Professor

Download Now

"1) Innovation and growth is not (just) a fuzzy process of screwing around vigorously (SAV) but can be a systematic process,

2) Innovation and growth is not (just) something that happens in a department like R & D or product development,

3) Innovation and growth is not just about products or solutions - it is about creating a transformational change in the way people live, work and play." - Chapter 26, Erich Joachimsthaler, author of "Hidden in Plain Sight"

Who should buy?

The Innovation eBook and Definitive Guide has been downloaded and used by over 1,000 professionals, faculty and innovators at educational institutions and businesses all around the world including EDS, Ericsson, Center for Sales Strategy, IdeaChampions, Acara Global, Byrne Dairy, Cleveland Clinic, Magpie, DOJ/FBI, HP, Hewlett Packard, Intervista Institute, Fryett Consulting Group, Satellite Shelters, ProductVentures, Speakeasy - a Best Buy company, Jarden Consumer Solutions, Hallmark, Infinium, DeakinPrime - Deakin University, Lucas-TVS, McCann Worldgroup, S.P.Jain Center of Management, Suffolk University, RiCoMan, AmpControl, Craig Rispin, Momentive, Champion Laboratories, University of Phoenix, University of Washington, SFR - Neufbox, Attwood as Edison, Academy of Sport, Ideogenesis, Principled Innovation, Meridian Partners, Ananzi, Tangibility, Syngenta Global, Speedy, The Business Lab, Deloitte, Lane Management, University of California at Irvine, Wharton Business School, Babson University, Larsen & Toubro, Nokia, Credera, Pfizer, Bilkent University, Indian Institute of Science, Bacardi, Chick-fil-A, LG Electronics, Pepsi, J&J and many more.

If you are a marketing executive, information executive, IT executive, product manager, marketer, product marketer, sales operations manager, sales director, sales consultant, business consultant, product designer, brand manager, marketing manager, VP of products, VP of marketing, VP of technology, research & development director, product director, product marketing manager, marketing consultant, brand consultant, innovation consultant, chief innovation officer, engineer, engineering student, business school student, business school professor, technology student, technology consultant, design engineer, consultant, trainer, professor or management consultant - this book and definitive guide is for you! If you are one of the key executives of the company or the CEO, buy this guide for your company!

• The complete Innovation Bootcamp presentation and handouts containing over 400 presentation slides to spark new ideas, channel team creativity and create innovation factory.
• 100+ pertinent strategies and tools, hands-on techniques and uncommon insights to unleash creativity and innovation at your business

The Innovation Bootcamp Resource Kit consists presentation slides of Six Engaging Online Workshop Sessions:

• 1. Benchmarking and Leading with Innovation
• The Business Case for Innovation
• 2. Unblocking Creativity and Innovation
• The Essential Processes and Skills
• 3. Unleashing Team Innovation
• Great Teams Deliver Great Innovations
• 4. and 5. Business Innovation Case Studies
• Learn how Top Innovators Lead with Innovation (Google, Netflix, Apple, Toyota, Southwest, J&J, P&G, GE, more)
• 6. Building an Innovation Factory
• Create a sustainable, scalable Business Innovation Model
• "The Innovation Bootcamp provided an excellent orientation on the topic of innovation and I learned several new techniques for generating and successfully implementing new ideas. Plentiful real world case studies was another aspect I liked about the program. I highly recommend it." - IT Manager, Top 5 IT Services Business

There's more:

Get the monthly Innovation report from InnovationMain.com FREE!

2010-01-25T21:06:28.826-08:00

As Twitter is to consumer, oGoing is to business

"I am excited to launch a new social media communications platform for business users who want to connect, communicate & collaborate with their co-workers, peers, teams, customers, partners & prospects now!" Sanjay Dalal, founder, oGoing. "oGoing provides a robust social networking platform for the Enterprise. As Twitter is to consumer, oGoing is to business"

oGoing connects You with Your co-workers through the exchange of frequent answers to one question: "What's going on?" (What's going on at your work, projects, product launches, deals, partnerships, customer service, group brainstorming, & much more)

oGoing is the most innovative social + business networking service in the marketplace today for sending and sharing real-time updates with your co-workers anywhere in the world!

If you already have a Twitter account, that's Great! On oGoing, you can share all your Twitter updates with your oGoing friends. oGoing has also launched Facebook integration, and APIs to allow for integrating oGoing with your business applications.

On oGoing, every user can setup their own unique profile beginning with user name, location, email, brief bio, website, photograph, and key information about your profession. Once you have setup your profile, you can then begin sharing updates with your followers - your co-workers, partners, customers & more. You can invite new co-workers to join oGoing as well.

But wait, there's more... On oGoing, you can setup multiple accounts with various user names, and link them together! Imagine a Sales executive setting up multiple accounts based on geography or vertical markets. Each account relates to specific sales teams working in their territories. This way, you can send updates to all your followers on all accounts at once, or choose which specific accounts to send updates to...

When you have that really long URL to share, and it takes up all the space in the update area... no more!! On oGoing, you can attach your URL separately (long or short), and it will appear on your update... and you still have all the space you need to write your update!!

oGoing even allows you to share the updates you love the most from your co-workers (or your own), and even share updates you like the most with your co-workers. You can easily track the most shared updates, most liked updates, and the most talked about updates...

On oGoing, you can immediately follow your followers automatically, and even send an automatic personalized message to your followers as they begin to follow you... besides, you can send direct messages to all your followers. Built-in messaging is a key feature of oGoing.

But what if I want to send my updates to my specific peers only, and don't want the rest of my followers to see them... no problem! On oGoing, you can include your special peers in your own Group... so the next time you have something important to share, only let your special co-worker friends on your Group know about this!

oGoing Team

2009-12-20T21:35:04.360-08:00

oGoing is Live! Introducing oGoing : "Twitter for Enterprise"

"oGoing is Live! I am excited to launch a brand new social + business networking service for business users who want to connect, communicate & collaborate with their co-workers, peers, teams, customers, partners & prospects now!" Sanjay Dalal, founder, oGoing. "oGoing provides a robust social networking platform for the Enterprise."

oGoing connects You with Your co-workers through the exchange of frequent answers to one question: "What's going on?" In real-time!

oGoing is the most innovative social + business networking service in the marketplace today for sending and sharing real-time updates with your co-workers worldwide now!

Using oGoing, you can update, reply and share with co-workers frequent answers to one question: "What's going on?" oGoing provides a social + business media platform wherein you and your co-workers talk about what's going on in their work, projects, deals and more...in real-time.

oGoing - What's going on? Stay in touch. Join the conversation.

oGoing Features

If you already have a Twitter account, that's Great! On oGoing, you can share all your Twitter updates with your oGoing friends.

But wait, there's more... On oGoing, you can setup multiple accounts with various user names, and link them together! This way, you can send updates to all your followers on all accounts at once, or choose which specific accounts to send updates to...Cool!!

When you have that really long URL to share, and it takes up all the space in the update area... no more!! On oGoing, you can attach your URL separately (long or short), and it will appear on your update... and you still have all the space you need to write your update!! Very cool!!

oGoing even allows you to share the updates you love the most from your co-workers (or your own), and even share updates you like the most with your co-workers. You can easily track the most shared updates, most liked updates, and the most talked about updates... Is that cool or what?

On oGoing, you can immediately follow your followers automatically, and send an automatic personalized message to your followers as they begin to follow you... how cool is that!!

But what if I want to send my updates to my specific peers only, and don't want the rest of my followers to see them... no problem! On oGoing, you can include your peers in your own Group... so the next time you have something important to share, only let your special friends on your Group know about this! Ultra cool!!

oGoing For Business

oGoing is innovative and ready for your business!!

If you are a business, you want to setup your own oGoing Business Portal now. When you setup your business profile on Twitter or other social networks: You cannot control your followers, you cannot control your branding, you cannot keep some of your updates private, you cannot create programs away from your competitor's eyes, you cannot give access to all your employees, you cannot create one-to-one updates for your key customers or partners, you cannot avoid spammers. Would you want your business to operate under this environment?

Request Business Portal

oGoing Team

2009-12-16T09:38:25.735-08:00

Launching oGoing - What's going on?

"If you like Twitter, you will love oGoing," Sanjay Dalal, founder, oGoing.

oGoing connects You with Your friends, family and co-workers through the exchange of frequent answers to one question: "What's going on?" In real-time!

oGoing is the most innovative social networking service in the marketplace today for sending updates to all your friends worldwide now!

You can find all your friends on Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and Myspace when you join oGoing, and invite them to get started.

Using oGoing, you can keep in touch with your friends, family and co-workers with frequent answers to one question: "What's going on?" oGoing is a social media platform wherein you and your friends, family and co-workers talk about what's going on in their lives, work, family, fun things, anything at all...in real-time. oGoing - What's going on? Stay in touch. Join the conversation.

oGoing For Me

If you already have a Twitter account, that's Great! On oGoing, you can share all your Twitter updates with your oGoing friends.

But wait, there's more... On oGoing, you can setup multiple accounts with various user names, and link them together! This way, you can send updates to all your followers on all accounts at once, or choose which specific accounts to send updates to...Cool!!

When you have that really long URL to share, and it takes up all the space in the update area... no more!! On oGoing, you can attach your URL separately (long or short), and it will appear on your update... and you still have all the space you need to write your update!! Very cool!!

oGoing even allows you to share the updates you love the most from your friends (or your own), and even share updates you like the most with your friends. You can easily track the most shared updates, most liked updates, and the most talked about updates... Is that cool or what?

On oGoing, you can immediately follow your followers automatically, and send an automatic personalized message to your followers as they begin to follow you... how cool is that!!

But what if I want to send my updates to my special friends only, and don't want the rest of my followers to see them... no problem! On oGoing, you can include your special friends in your own Group... so the next time you are at your favorite restaurant, or doing something spontaneously good, only let your special friends on your Group know about this! Ultra cool!!

oGoing For Business

oGoing is innovative and ready for your business!! Setup oGoing for your own business with a unique website created just for your business... At your oGoing For Business website, only your business, your employees, your team members can all share updates with each other, or share updates with your customers or partners - privately, or publicly!! It's your own oGoing where you can brand it, customize it, and manage it... Just go here to request your oGoing For Business portal for a free trial for 60 days - no strings attached. Request Business Portal

oGoing For Business has all the cool features of oGoing For Me, and then some!!

oGoing Team

2009-12-14T11:28:42.295-08:00

Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business

Innovation eBook used by 550+ innovative companies worldwide - eBook Best Seller (deployed at Nokia, EDS, Pepsi, HP, many more...)

Innovation eBook and Definitive Guide is a 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Proctor and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Frito Lay, IBM, Nike, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, Dell, Tata, Intel and more. With pertinent articles from this award-winning Creativity And Innovation Driving Business Blog, this Faculty eBook provides real-world examples on how the Top Innovators innovate and grow their business successfully time and again, especially during economic cycles. Creativity And Innovation in Business is a definitive guide and resource that will help you unblock creativity, uncover and create game-changing innovations, and make exponential business growth a reality.

"I teach Applied Creativity and Innovation for a College near Toronto, Canada. I gave my business students an assignment to work with one of the top 10 innovative companies and to research/report on what makes them innovative, type of innovative challenges, benefits, etc. Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary document that they used for their work." - Business School Professor

Download Now

"1) Innovation and growth is not (just) a fuzzy process of screwing around vigorously (SAV) but can be a systematic process,

2) Innovation and growth is not (just) something that happens in a department like R & D or product development,

3) Innovation and growth is not just about products or solutions - it is about creating a transformational change in the way people live, work and play." - Chapter 26, Erich Joachimsthaler, author of "Hidden in Plain Sight"

Who should buy?

The Innovation eBook and Definitive Guide has been downloaded and used by over 1,000 professionals, faculty and innovators at educational institutions and businesses all around the world including EDS, Ericsson, Center for Sales Strategy, IdeaChampions, Acara Global, Byrne Dairy, Cleveland Clinic, Magpie, DOJ/FBI, HP, Hewlett Packard, Intervista Institute, Fryett Consulting Group, Satellite Shelters, ProductVentures, Speakeasy - a Best Buy company, Jarden Consumer Solutions, Hallmark, Infinium, DeakinPrime - Deakin University, Lucas-TVS, McCann Worldgroup, S.P.Jain Center of Management, Suffolk University, RiCoMan, AmpControl, Craig Rispin, Momentive, Champion Laboratories, University of Phoenix, University of Washington, SFR - Neufbox, Attwood as Edison, Academy of Sport, Ideogenesis, Principled Innovation, Meridian Partners, Ananzi, Tangibility, Syngenta Global, Speedy, The Business Lab, Deloitte, Lane Management, University of California at Irvine, Wharton Business School, Babson University, Larsen & Toubro, Nokia, Credera, Pfizer, Bilkent University, Indian Institute of Science, Bacardi, Chick-fil-A, LG Electronics, Pepsi and many more.

If you are a marketing executive, information executive, IT executive, product manager, marketer, product marketer, sales operations manager, sales director, sales consultant, business consultant, product designer, brand manager, marketing manager, VP of products, VP of marketing, VP of technology, research & development director, product director, product marketing manager, marketing consultant, brand consultant, innovation consultant, chief innovation officer, engineer, engineering student, business school student, business school professor, technology student, technology consultant, design engineer, consultant, trainer, professor or management consultant - this book and definitive guide is for you! If you are one of the key executives of the company or the CEO, buy this guide for your company!

• The complete Innovation Bootcamp presentation and handouts containing over 400 presentation slides to spark new ideas, channel team creativity and create innovation factory.
• 100+ pertinent strategies and tools, hands-on techniques and uncommon insights to unleash creativity and innovation at your business

The Innovation Bootcamp Resource Kit consists presentation slides of Six Engaging Online Workshop Sessions:

• 1. Benchmarking and Leading with Innovation
• The Business Case for Innovation
• 2. Unblocking Creativity and Innovation
• The Essential Processes and Skills
• 3. Unleashing Team Innovation
• Great Teams Deliver Great Innovations
• 4. and 5. Business Innovation Case Studies
• Learn how Top Innovators Lead with Innovation (Google, Netflix, Apple, Toyota, Southwest, more)
• 6. Building an Innovation Factory
• Create a sustainable, scalable Business Innovation Model
• "The Innovation Bootcamp provided an excellent orientation on the topic of innovation and I learned several new techniques for generating and successfully implementing new ideas. Plentiful real world case studies was another aspect I liked about the program. I highly recommend it." - IT Manager, Top 5 IT Services Business

There's more:

Special Offer: Buy eBook today and get the Annual Innovation Report from Creativity And Innovation Driving Business delivered FREE! (in January) (a $99 value)

2009-12-12T12:07:16.775-08:00

Marketing Innovation drives Market Leadership

Marketing executives have limited dollars and resources to invest on marketing programs and create market share growth. How do they pick the optimal go-to-market strategy to achieve market leadership? What markets do they invest into and how much? How do they create Marketing Innovation so that they are maximizing the marketing investments and generating higher revenue today and in the future?

The markets can be divided into five broad categories including Growth market, Emerging market, Existing market, Replacement market and Untapped market to create the appropriate context.

1. Growth market:

a. Growth market is the market where the organization is seeing the most business traction today. The marketing executive needs to first answer the following questions to establish the baseline: What is our current market share in the Growth market? Who are our prime customers? Why are the customers using our products? For how long? Do we provide an effective solution? Are we winning? Why are we winning? Who are we winning against?
b. The marketing executive also needs to determine the Growth market trends. Whether the Growth market is going to grow further. And determine whether the organization is growing at the pace of the Growth market or faster than the pace of the Growth market.
c. At this point an internal analysis of marketing programs that have worked well to get us to this position in the Growth market is needed. The marketing executive needs to determine what has worked and what has not. And why?
d. Now, the key question needs to be addressed on how marketing department can accelerate the business in this Growth market? Whether the department can create an assembly line of marketing programs to accelerate the growth in this market, and rapidly scale. What does the department need to create the assembly line?
e. Finally the department needs to determine the marketing tools, sales collateral and techniques needed to create the demand in the Growth market.
f. Knowing that Growth markets provide maximum revenue dollars today, minimum of 50% to 60% of the marketing investment should be focused on the Growth market. The marketing game is all about execution in the Growth markets.

2. Emerging market:

a. Any market where the organization is seeing an early traction is an Emerging market. The questions that the marketing deparment need to address are: Why are we seeing the early traction? For how long? Do we have an effective solution? Are we winning? Are there competitors prevalent in this market?
b. Now, the marketing department needs to determine whether the Emerging market is a new industry, a new geography, a new vertical, a new user, or a new application of our product.
c. At this point, market sizing and trending is needed. Is there a larger market here beyond the Emerging market? How big is the size of the potential Emerging market? What is the potential growth of this Emerging market? How can we win in this Emerging market? Again, marketing needs to have answers to these questions.
d. The marketing department should invest into one or two emerging markets. Marketing programs for an emerging market will be more creative, innovative and ad-hoc.
e. In an Emerging Market, it is always best to create a Hypothesis. Experiment. Test the hypothesis. Change as often as needed.
f. Knowing that there is a huge upside from investing in an emerging market, minimum of 10% to 20% of marketing investment should be focused here. There is mid-term to long-term revenue potential in the Emerging markets.

3. Existing market:

a. Existing market is the market consisting of the existing, long-standing customers. First, the marketing department needs to know who the existing customers are, why they purchased company's product, how long they have been using company's product, whether they are happy customers and loyal customers, and the company's current relationship with these customers. Another key question to address is how many customers the company loses every quarter and why.
b. It is very important to understand how the existing customers are using company's products. Whether the customers are using the products to the fullest potential. This would lead to key question: Can we market more of the same products to the existing customers? This is tied to extracting the maximum life-time value from the existing customers. Marketing needs to know the maximum life-time value of the existing customers.
c. Another key question that needs to be answered is: Can the company market different products to our existing customers? How do we do this?
d. Ultimately, the marketing department needs to determine the total revenue potential from existing customers. And assess on where the business is today, and the growth potential.
e. When it comes to execution, marketing department should analyze the marketing programs for the existing customers, on what has worked well in the past, and what has not worked well.
f. Another program to consider is whether the existing customers can refer the company to more customers. And what processes need to be in place to achieve this. An estimate of the total potential market of referral customers from the existing customers is essential. Again, establishing the baseline on where the company is with referral business, and analyzing the growth potential is needed.
g. Existing customers not only bring the company maintenance and ongoing service revenue, but provide a tangible upside at a lowered investment.
h. Minimum of 15% to 20% of marketing investment should be focused here. There is short-term revenue potential in the Existing markets (unless it is completely tapped).

4. Replacement market:

There are two replacement markets. Markets that the company takes away from Competitors and Adjacent markets.

a. Competitors:

1. Marketing department needs to have a deep understanding of the direct and indirect competitors and their business. Market share analysis needs to be conducted on Competitors' current market share, and importantly whether their market share is growing, shrinking or remaining flat.
2. Competitive marketing strategy needs to be established.
3. Simply put, competitors' customers need to be identified. A key question to ask is: Are the competitors' customers satisfied? How is our own customer satisfaction?
4. Analysis needs to be conducted on why the organization loses against the competitors, why it wins against them in new business. A list of the competitors' weaknesses needs to be surfaced as part of the SWOT analysis.
5. Further research on how many customers the company has won over from the competition needs to be undertaken (takeaways) and by the same token, existing customers lost to competition (giveaways).
6. Finally, marketing department needs to creatively finds ways to access the competitor's customer base (names, titles, industries, etc.).
7. At this point, marketing department is ready to create marketing programs to win away competitor's customers. At a minimum, the program includes campaign, offer, marketing and sales tools, fulfillment, product and data conversion and integration.
8. Minimum 10% to 20% marketing investment should be aimed at competition. There is mid-term revenue potential in Competitors' markets (programs take time to execute; customers take time to convert).

b. Adjacent market:

1. Adjacent markets are markets that are either sub-sets or super-sets of the solution that the company provides. The company must know on whether it provides a complete solution to the customer's problems or only a subset. For instance, the solution could be deeply embedded within a business process wherein the customer uses other technologies and products. If the company provides a complete solution, what is the strategy against those who provide only a subset? If the company provides a subset, what is the strategy to provide a complete solution? These questions need to be addressed.
2. The marketing department needs to determine the players in the Adjacent market that provide a complete solution or a subset, and whether they are potential competitors or partners.
3. Further, the marketing department needs to answer the following questions: Who are the customers? Are their needs maturing? Are they looking to upgrade and replace the other players? What is the market growth potential?
4. Finally the all-important analysis on resources, costs, profits and risks associated with entering an Adjacent market needs to be conducted. Questions such as entering the Adjacent market head-on, complementing existing players, or focus on a specific niche need to be addressed.
5. The key to execution in Adjacent Market is Experiment. Test a hypothesis. Change the strategy as often as needed.
6. Minimum 5% to 10% marketing investment should be aimed at Adjacent markets. There is mid-term to long-term revenue potential in the Adjacent markets (creating a strategy, executing and attracting customers will take time).
9. Executing marketing programs for adjacent markets require opportunistic measures and entrepreneurship.

5. Untapped market:

a. Untapped market is where the company has zero business and no traction. Marketing department needs to determine the Untapped markets, and reasons on why the company has not created any business in these markets.
b. Marketing has to answer the following questions: Can we tap into this market? What is the investment required? What is the available market?
c. Competitive analysis needs to be conducted on whether the competitors have already tapped into this market, and why.
d. As part of execution, marketing needs to think about creating beachheads, and whether the company can leverage their mindshare to build and create this market.
e. Since Untapped market is brand new, a key question on market entry needs to be analyzed: entering with partners or going direct.
f. Marketing department needs to think about creating opportunistic mechanisms to explore the untapped market, and should be willing to change them often.
g. Minimum 1% to 5% marketing investment should be aimed at untapped markets. There is long-term revenue potential in this market.
h. Untapped market is where companies evolve, become great companies and bring in new revenue and market share. Investing into untapped markets is high risk, high reward strategy.

Marketing Innovation requires strategy, disciplined execution, and entrepreneurship (especially outside Growth markets). Marketing Innovation can create significant market leadership for organizations that put all the marketing wheels in motion.

Download my Creativity and Innovation eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia...Learn more Download Now

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

2009-12-10T21:46:58.442-08:00

Intuit - Creating Innovations in Software Industry

Creating Innovations in Software Industry

Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), the world's largest maker of financial management and tax software, is now branding itself as the Small Business software company with the goal of helping businesses to "start, run & grow" fast. Intuit is best known for the household software brands Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax created for small businesses, consumers and accountants. The company's mission was to "create new ways to manage personal finances for small businesses that are so profound and simple, customers cannot imagine going back to the old way," driven by "Right for My Business" strategy.

Today's Intuit is different with it's vision of "Going Beyond Innovation"

"Innovation is nothing new at Intuit. It's been our heartbeat for nearly a quarter century.

As the world evolves, so has Intuit, driven by the passion for inventing solutions to solve important problems, perfecting those solutions and delighting its customers. Intuit started small in 1983 with Quicken personal finance software, simplifying a common household dilemma: balancing the family checkbook. Little more than two decades later, Intuit's revenue tops $3 billion, being publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, and recognized as America's most-admired software company and one of the country's best places to work."

Source: Intuit Investor Day Presentation

Intuit is poised to deliver sizable new innovations in the near term:

New product pipeline 5x 10 year average

? Producing results:
? Mobile:7 launched; 17 in R&D pipeline
? Payments:12% of units sold on apps

How does Intuit innovate & delight the customer?

Intuit applies two core capabilities today:

1. Apply a customer centric mindset and CDI methodology using direct observation and savoring the surprises to:
Create clarity around target user(s)
Develop deep understanding of their dreams, work flows & key pain points

2. Apply design-for-delight principles to evoke positive customer emotion by:
Developing offerings that address large unmet or underserved needs?
?that are dramatically easier to use or a better value than alternatives
? helping end users save or make money (better money outcomes)

"Inside Intuit" authors Suzanne Taylor and Kathy Schroeder elaborate on how Intuit created Innovations in the Software Industry, warded off Microsoft, and achieved sustaining market leadership.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Here are the top five Innovations that Intuit created to achieve small business software market leadership:

1. Customer Evangelist Culture

Intuit ensured that the new hires understood the company's Holy Grail: A Happy Customer. Customer focus, wherein Intuit makes a difference in the customers' lives, is the everyday Mantra practiced by everyone at Intuit. Practices such as interviewing and hiring the right employees who believe in customer first, postage-paid "Customer suggestions" included with every copy of software (and follow through on the suggestions), answering service and technical support calls for at least four hours each month, "Follow Me Home" research wherein marketing and engineering staff literally follow a customer home and watch them install and use the software, database to track continuous customer feedback, customer advisory panel consisting of loyal customers providing feedback on new products, features and quality, and focus groups to conduct market research on how customers buy and use software (to manage money and finances).

These are just few of the Innovative mechanisms that Intuit installed to create an Industry first Customer Evangelist Culture that resulted in tremendous customer loyalty and market share growth.

2. Customer-Intuitive Design

By talking directly to prospective and ultimately current customers, Intuit founders and product managers built a deep understanding of exactly what the customer needs and pain points were. This led to defining software products to solve these fundamental customer needs. Whereas most software makers before Intuit were focused on creating "complex" software with an elaborate set of features that customers hardly ever used (and were confused), Intuit created new innovations in software design by creating software that a customer really cared for, and can benefit from on an everyday basis. Intuit engineers and product managers will go at lengths to understand the customer's mindset - from buying, to installing to using software, and becoming a loyal customer.

3. Customer-driven Marketing and Product Management

Most of the Software Industry before Intuit saw Marketing's role as marketing communications and brand marketing. However, Intuit realized early on that the marketing department must contribute as the company develops new products. And the role of Product managers was born wherein the Product Managers act as product business managers, oversaw income statements and all aspects of building the business. According to Scott Cook, the co-founder of Intuit, product managers must act as "champions of their products, embodying the voice of the customer not just for product development and marketing communications, but also for technical support, and overseeing the critical feedback loop between technical support and product development." Marketing also assisted the "Product Launch", wherein besides managing advertising, public relations and upgrade mailings, Marketing also created internal launch readiness, trained technical support and customer service, and created financial forecasts for the sales volumes for operations and planning.

4. Direct Marketing and Retailing

Although other software makers had tried direct marketing before, Intuit placed a big bet in their early days and want all out on their Direct Marketing campaign: "End Financial Hassles. $49.95" The Direct Marketing campaign targeted ads in three major magazines, slashed the price of Quicken in half, provided no copy protection, and was tied to wholesale distribution - all firsts for a software company. This resulted in huge sales and sustained the growth of Intuit. Intuit introduced "National Sales Tour" wherein employees visit the retailers and retailers' customers. This mitigated channel conflicts, brought employees closer to retailers and the customers, and created greater awareness of customer's buying habits - or as Cook put it, an all important "sense of the merchant." Intuit would expand Direct Marketing into Radio and then Television, and managed its two-pronged sales strategy of retail distribution and direct to expand the market share and leadership.

5. The Process driving Innovation

Intuit that went through several ups and downs from late nineties through early 2000, eventually began focusing on the "process and culture together to drive results" under the leadership of then CEO Steve Bennett (who came from GE). According to Bennett, "Bringing some of the big company process to small company customer innovation is our biggest challenge. Innovation isn't just about ideas, because ideas without operational rigor just fall apart." Bennett established rigor throughout the company, focusing the company on the "critical few" drivers and issues. Bennett also established Six Sigma mechanisms to achieve "Process Excellence" in various company processes. For example, the customer service team reduced customer wait times by 40%, and another product team reported 70% reduction in bugs due to Six Sigma processes.

Bottomline:

Today Intuit does over $3 Billion in annual software sales, is profitable, has a market cap of over $9 billion, and is poised to achieve annual double-digit sales growth. Importantly, Intuit is capturing the small business market share through established brands including QuickBooks, TurboTax, Quicken, Lacerte ProSeries, and Digital Insight.

Download my Creativity and Innovation eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia...Learn more
Download Now

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Acknowledgments:

Suzanne Taylor and Kathy Schroeder - "Inside Intuit" - Harvard Business School Press

Originally published in 2006. Republished in 2009.

2009-12-08T22:09:53.970-08:00

3M - The Innovation Machine

3M (NYSE: MMM) "Innovative technology for the changing world" is one of the top 20 innovators in The Innovation Index. In an earlier blog post on "Failures and Stumbles driving Innovation", we talked about how 3M has created its own Innovation Machine to stimulate growth over the last hundred plus years.

"Our company has, indeed, stumbled onto some of its new products. But never forget that you can only stumble if you're moving."

• Protect and defend the core; inventing a new future
• Broaden the product portfolio to become more important to customers

• R&D spending increases, protecting our flanks and engaging the labs
• Fixing chronic capacity issues
• Adjacencies, Emerging Business Opportunities and

• Shortening supply chains
• Driving growth by with regional brands and manufacturing
• Releasing working capital and lowering entropy costs and the effective tax rate

• Emerging Business Opportunities (EBOs) and other adjacencies

The Globe story cites Manso's favorite on experimentation and intra-entrepreneurship, a story that has become both a model and a fable among the innovators: "Spencer Silver, a researcher at the St. Paul technology company 3M, discovered a new kind of light adhesive in 1968 that initially was shelved because it couldn't compete with more robust glues and had no obvious commercial application. A decade later, his colleague Art Fry recognized that the adhesive, which stuck lightly to surfaces and was readily repositioned, would be perfect for the best-selling product 3M eventually launched as the Post-it Note."

3M - Failures to Innovation Machine

3M is quite possibly the most innovative company of our times that even CEOs of other visionary companies admire. 3M is best known for its household brands such as Post-it Note, Scotchgard, Scotch tape, and many more. 3M initially failed in its mining business, and eventually stumbled onto most of the successful innovations that we know 3M for, including Post-It, Masking and Scotch tape. "Although the invention of the Post-it note might have been somewhat accidental, the creation of the 3M environment that allowed it was anything but an accident," according to Collins and Porras, authors of Built to Last.

3M institutionalized such mechanisms to drive Innovation as the "15 percent rule" - technical people spend up to 15 percent of their time on projects of their own choosing or initiative, "25 percent rule" - each division should produce 25 percent of annual sales from new products and services introduced in the previous five years (which later increased to 30 percent), "Golden Step" award - given to those creating successful new business ventures originated within 3M.

More growth mechanisms were created to stimulate internal entrepreneurship, test new ideas, create unplanned experimentation, share new ideas, develop new innovation, cross-fertilize technology, ideas and innovation, stimulate innovation via customer problems, speed product development and market introduction cycles, provide profit sharing, and promote "a small company within a big company feel" by creating small autonomous business units and product divisions -- over a dozen business processes to stimulate creativity, innovation and growth -- in early 1990 3M had over sixty thousand products and over forty separate product divisions.

Incentives for Innovation

Manso wants to create incentives such as "slow-vesting stock options, golden parachutes, debtor-friendly bankruptcy laws, and, in academia, tenure" to motivate the employees to innovate without worries about failure and job insecurity.

"Incentive schemes that motivate exploration are fundamentally different from standard pay-for-performance incentive schemes used to motivate effort," Manso wrote in an abstract this fall. "The optimal compensation scheme that motivates exploration exhibits substantial tolerance (or even reward) for early failure."

In Blocking Creativity and Innovation on this blog, we talked about creating a system that unblocks innovation and creativity by building new processes, creating an innovation culture and rewarding and recognizing the innovators.

Five takeaways stimulating Innovation

Authors Collins and Porras summarize their findings from 3M and provide five takeaways to drive Innovation at any business:

1. "Give it a try--and quick!" - Essentially echoing on having a process to try out a lot of stuff, and keeping what really works. The key here is to do something. Keep on trying something new.

2. "Accept that mistakes will be made." - Learn from the mistakes quickly, and move on. Failures are part and parcel of what creates new innovation. Don't repeat the same mistakes.

3. "Take small steps." - Experiment, but on a small scale. When something looks promising, go all out and seize the opportunity. This way one can do plenty of inexpensive experiments that create a funnel of would-be innovations.

4. "Give people the room they need." - Without entrepreneurship, there is no experiment. Without experiment there is no success or failure. People need some time, incentives, job security and room to experiment.

5. "Mechanisms - build that ticking clock!" - How do you harness creativity and build innovation? It cannot happen simply by chance. Companies need to create practices and tangible mechanisms to experiment, try out new ideas and innovate.

Bottomline

3M has launched many new innovations in the marketplace thereby solidifying its position as a top innovator of technology governed by systematic processes and excellent manufacturing.

For instance, in November, 3M introduced a new connector for microSD cards which has the smallest form factor available, and yet provides excellent connection and locking mechanisms. 3M opens up the removable flash memory card market for phones, digital cameras, gaming and more.

Earlier, in an effort to broaden the market share in the auto industry beyond the professionals, 3M went direct to consumers, the do-it-yourselfer and car enthusiasts, with a new line of consumer care car products. 3M introduced three ready-to-use product solutions that range from better appearance and shine, to increased performance and repair.

3M is also driving Hydrogen Fuel research along with the Department of Energy, and is innovating MicroTouch capacitive TouchSense System.

China and India represent the most important growth opportunities for 3M
?China ?potential to reach > $3B by 2014
?India ?potential to reach > $1B
?China + India =~40% of US Economy in size with 1/8thGDP/capita

Source: 3M Investor Relations

These are just a few examples of the new innovations at 3M that are both practical and ingenious, solving the innate customer need and creating new markets and growth. As with all innovations, at times it addresses a ready market that creates immediate revenue growth, at times it creates a new market entry in an emerging market that is about to happen.

3M is one of the top 20 innovators in The Innovation Index. Although the stories of the planned failures stimulating growth at 3M are passed along by various authors who study the innovations at 3M from inside, or by company employees who go on to become innovators themselves, it would be great if 3M were also to publish an annual list of the top initiatives that failed and lessons learned from these. The rest of the industry can greatly benefit from such wisdom.

Download my Creativity and Innovation eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia...Learn more
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2009-12-05T14:55:06.209-08:00

P&G - Procter & Gamble - Innovating & Growing with Business Model

Did you know that Procter and Gamble - P&G makes all these cool products below that you use everyday in your house?

You betcha... from Duracell and Gillette to Crest, Charmin to Tide, Bounty to Iams - P&G is the world's largest consumer goods company. As a matter of fact, "three billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world." P&G has a bigger mission that they are trying to fulfill: "Provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers, now and for generations to come."

P&G is one of the Top 20 innovators of the Innovation Index.

P&G stock is doing relatively well compared to the major indexes. Here is a snapshot of how well P&G is holding up since 2007, beating both S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices:

Why is P&G doing so well?

One answer: Innovation. Innovation driving new business, innovation driving growth, innovative leadership by past CEO of P&G A.G. Lafley, & current CEO Bob McDonald. Another fact that most investors may not know about: Barclays Global Investors and Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett's company) are the top two institutional holders of P&G.

P&G has been making or handily beating the earnings estimates for the past 4 quarters (despite the Great Recession):

Earnings History	Dec-08	Mar-09	Jun-09	Sep-09
EPS Est	1.58	0.80	0.79	0.99
EPS Actual	1.58	0.84	0.80	1.06
Difference	0.00	0.04	0.01	0.07
Surprise %	0.0%	5.0%	1.3%	7.1%

(Courtesy - Yahoo Finance)

P&G Revenue & Gross Profit are beginning to climb back (check earnings results below), after divesting major businesses such as the prescription business in 2009 (courtesy - Yahoo Finance). Sales fell in 2008-2009 (yearly sales for June 2009) owing to the recession, divesting of businesses, and P&G's ill-timed strategy of raising prices for its products in the midst of the Great Recession that backfired. The price increases initially helped buoy sales, but eventually sales suffered. P&G is correcting the price increase strategy of 2008 beginning in Q3 of 2009.

PERIOD ENDING		30-Jun-09	30-Jun-08	30-Jun-07
Total Revenue		79,029,000	83,503,000	76,476,000
Cost of Revenue		38,898,000	40,695,000	36,686,000
Gross Profit		40,131,000	42,808,000	39,790,000

P&G Global Business Unit Organization

Courtesy: P&G Quarterly News. PG.com

24 of P&G's brands have more than a billion dollars in net annual sales,^[15] and another 18 have sales between $500 million and $1 billion. (Courtesy - Wikipedia). These P&G brands are run as business units, with brand heads managing the operations, products & profits.

Billion dollar brands

• Ariel is a brand of laundry detergent/liquid available in numerous forms and scents.
• Actonel is a brand of the osteoporosis drug risedronate co-marketed by Sanofi-Aventis.
• Bounty is a brand of paper towel sold in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom (rebranded to "Plenty" in the UK after being sold to SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget).
• Braun is a small-appliances manufacturer specializing in electric razors, coffeemakers, toasters, and blenders.
• Crest is a brand of toothpaste.
• Dawn is a brand of dishwashing detergent.
• Downy/Lenor is a brand of fabric softener.
• Duracell is a brand of batteries and flashlights.
• Fusion is a brand of men's wet shave razors and is the quickest P&G brand to have reached $1 billion in annual sales.
• Gain is a brand of laundry detergent and fabric softeners.
• Gillette is a safety razor manufacturer.
• Head & Shoulders is a brand of shampoo body wash, and deodorant.
• Old Spice is a brand of aftershave and shaving cream.
• Ivory is a soap.
• Nice 'n Easy is a hair coloring product.
• Olay is a brand of women's skin care products.
• Oral-B is a brand of toothbrush.
• Pampers is a brand of disposable diaper.
• Pantene is a brand of hair care products (conditioners/styling aids).
• Prilosec OTC is a brand of heartburn medicine co-marketed by AstraZeneca.
• Pringles is a brand of potato chips.
• Puffs is a brand of facial tissue.
• Secret is a brand of antiperspirant and deodorant.
• TAG is a deodorant and body spray.
• Tide is a brand of laundry detergent.
• Vicks is a brand name of over-the-counter medicines (Formula 44, Sinex, NyQuil/DayQuil)
• Wella is a brand name of hair care products (shampoo, conditioner, styling, and hair color).
• Whisper is a brand of pantyliners sold primarily in Asian markets.

Global Products A to Z

Most of these brands, including Bounty, Crest, Pringles, Puffs, and Tide, are global products available in several continents. Procter & Gamble products are available in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

How did P&G do in the latest quarter?

"The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) reported net sales of $19.8 billion for the July - September quarter which exceeded the Company's guidance. Organic sales growth was up two percent versus a guidance range of flat to minus three percent on better than expected results across most business segments. Diluted net earnings per share increased three percent to $1.06, above the Company's guidance range of $0.95 to $1.00. The Company raised its outlook for the October - December quarter and fiscal 2010 organic sales growth citing modestly higher expectation for market growth. The Company also increased the low end of its fiscal year guidance range by $0.03 per share to reflect the higher top-line growth projection." - Courtesy PG.com Quarterly Press Release.

"Our September quarter results give us encouragement we are making the right choices to grow market share profitably," said President and Chief Executive Officer Bob McDonald. "We are investing in innovation, expanding our portfolio and improving consumer value to serve more consumers, in more parts of the world, more completely. We are driving simplification and improving execution while leveraging scale to create cost efficiencies that help fund these investments and accelerate growth."

What is sexy, new and exciting that P&G is innovating?

P&G recently introduced Cascade Complete All-in-1 ActionPacs.

Cascade Complete All-in-1 ActionPacs "give you the confidence of a job done right. It breaks down, dissolves, and rinses away tough food particles without the need to pre-wash."

Here is what one highly satisfied P&G customer had to say about All-in-1 ActionPacs:

OMG this is the most amazing product

"I have an older dishwasher that came with the apartment I live in. You had to completely wash the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I was basically using it to drain the dishes. I saw this on T.V. and went to walmart and got it. All I can say is it is almost magical the way it cleans. I tested it on several hard to wash dishes, dried oatmeal, dried rice krispy cereal and my stainless steel pots and everything came out clean, no stuck on food, no hard water residue. thank you! thank you! thank you! what a time saver. I am disabled and one of the hardest things to do is standing over the sink washing dishes."
By beadjeannie. Reviewer from Fresno, CA August 14, 2008

Marketing Machine

According to the Nielsen Company, in 2007 P&G spent more on U.S. advertising than any other company; the $2.62 billion spent by P&G is almost twice as much as that spent by General Motors, the next company on the Nielsen list.^[5] P&G was named 2008 Advertiser of the Year by Cannes International Advertising Festival.^[6]

Bottomline:

P&G is a great company with great leadership and employees, and highly satisfied customers. P&G will be around for the next 100 years. P&G will continue to grow high single digits even in this economy because of the breadth of its products, creativity and innovation, global market share, and delighted repeat customers who will not buy another brand. When P&G made increases in product prices to bolster revenue & profits - as high as 16 percent because of higher costs for plastic, energy, and paper in 2008 - consumers reacted and bought less of P&G products, and sales fell. P&G changed strategies in Q3 2009 to react to the price-conscious buyers & accommodate frugal shoppers: "Company leaders say they are cutting prices about 10 percent of their global product line, stepping up promotions such as coupons and other discounts, and making more ?value? pitches to consumers." P&G also announced a new plan for its laundry business, slashing the price of Cheer detergent by 13 percent and promoting it as a bargain brand. In CEO McDonald's words: "the focus on innovation, expanding our portfolio and improving consumer value" are keys to P&G's continued growth.

Download my Creativity and Innovation eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia ... Learn more
Download Now

Selected references:
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Innovation Index Reports

Introducing The Innovation Index
Annual Report 2007 - The Innovation Index gains 66%
Measuring Business Innovation Success
Q1 2008 Report - Innovation Index ahead of S&P 500
Q2 2008 Report - Top Innovators Deliver
Top 50 Innovative Companies in the world
Annual Report - Chapter One - Total Innovation Activity
Annual Report - Chapter Two - The Top Innovator
Annual Report - Chapter Three - The Innovation Insights
Innovation and Stock Performance Correlation
Future earnings guidance, A leading indicator
Smart Investing In Tough Economic Times
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies

About the Innovation Index

The Innovation Index introduced in December 2006 is a weighted stock price index of the top 20 Innovators in North America.The Innovation Index returned 66% in 2007 based on performance model, and would have returned 174% over the previous five years (2002-2006) based on historical model*. This assumes equal investment in each stock of The Innovation Index as of December 31, 2001. An average of $100 invested in The Innovation Index on December 31, 2001 returned $454 as of December 31, 2007. By comparison, $100 invested in S&P 500 returned 28% or $129, $100 invested in NASDAQ returned 34% or $136, and $100 invested in the Dow Jones Index returned 30% or $131 through December 31, 2007. The Innovation Index beats the S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index by more than seven times over the past six years.

Alphabetical list of the Top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index for 2008 and their stock ticker symbols:

3M Company - (NYSE: MMM)
Amazon.com, Inc. - (NASDAQ: AMZN)
America Movil - (NYSE: AMX)
Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL)
AT&T Inc. - (NYSE: T)
Best Buy Co., Inc. - (NYSE: BBY)
Cisco Systems, Inc. - (NASDAQ: CSCO)
Costco Wholesale Corporation - (NASDAQ: COST)
eBay Inc. - (NASDAQ: EBAY)
General Electric Co. - (NYSE: GE)
Google Inc. - (NASDAQ: GOOG)
Hewlett-Packard Co. - (NYSE: HPQ)
Intel Corporation - (NASDAQ: INTC)
International Business Machines Corp. - (NYSE: IBM)
Merck & Co., Inc. - (NYSE: MRK)
McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD)
Microsoft Corporation - (NASDAQ: MSFT)
NIKE, Inc. - (NYSE: NKE)
Research In Motion Limited - (NASDAQ: RIMM)
The Proctor & Gamble Company - (NYSE: PG)

The Innovation Index will analyze the positions and standings of the Top 20 Innovators at the end of each year. For 2008, there will be no further changes in The Innovation Index.

Originally published in 2008; republished in with major revisions in 2009.

2009-12-02T09:22:23.877-08:00

Strategic Innovation at Deloitte - The "Apple" of Services Innovation

Accounting and Innovation - Isn't that an Oxymoron?

Rick Rayson, Managing Partner, Orange County, Deloitte and Touche LLP, doesn't believe so. As a matter of fact, Rick tries to convince you otherwise - even goes as far as making you believe that accounting innovation can be "sexy". Well, sort of!

I had the first-hand opportunity to meet and hear Rick speak eloquently at last week's University of California, Irvine, Paul Merage School of Business hosted Dean's Leadership Circle event. Rick was the keynote speaker, introduced by the charismatic Dean of the UCI Business School, Andy Policano. I also spent some time with Rick after the event and was able to gain some real world insights.

Rick spoke about "Strategic Innovation at Deloitte". And he brought home many key points on what drives innovation at Deloitte, and how innovation drives business. Deloitte is a worldwide organization consisting of some 147,000 employees (talent), with offices in more than 140 countries, aggregate revenues of $23.1 billion in fiscal year 2007, and serving more than 80% of the 2007 Fortune Global 500.

Deloitte's marketplace competitors include Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Mercer, Towers Perrin, and IBM (NYSE: IBM). IBM is one of the Top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index.

Why is Strategic Innovation imperative at Deloitte?

It has to do with achieving Deloitte's vision:

To be the First Choice of:

* The world?s most coveted talent

* The most sought-after clients

In his speech, Rick addressed how most product companies innovate by filtering the exceptional opportunities from the utterly raw and mundane (unblocking creativity and innovation), by managing various levels of uncertainty and investment requirements towards creating new innovations while mitigating risks (process innovation), and by looking at the "horizon perspective" as created by Karl Ulrich, CIBC Professor, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (six ways to find innovation).

Professional Services Innovation

According to Rick, "Professional service firms like Deloitte have enjoyed recent macro economic changes brought on by extraordinary technological and regulatory developments such as the ERP, reengineering and Y2K craze of the mid to late 90?s and the requirements of Sarbanes Oxley legislation and regulations since 2002. The question really is ?What?s Next?. A key part of Deloitte's strategy is to develop new services, new ways to serve our clients and new ways to attract, develop and retain the talent we must have for this growth." This is Deloitte's Innovation and Creativity strategy to match its bold vision.

"To develop new services, new ways to serve our clients and new ways to attract, develop and retain the talent we must have for this growth"

Three Investments are paramount to Deloitte's success: New Services, New Ways to serve, New Ways to growing talent

Rick articulates and simplifies this key Deloitte strategy further and ties it back to Deloitte's vision:

Deloitte has an urgent need to innovate on two fronts:
* In our services to clients (for their often unusual or difficult problems), and
* In our internal talent management and execution (while facing a shrinking talent pool and competition to recruit and harness the best talent).

Two forces drive the need for innovation at Deloitte:
* The need to provide outstanding client service, and
* The need to maintain a pool of top talent to provide that service.

"Edge" Drives Innovation

According to Rick, Innovation at Deloitte is driven by the thousands of talented people working at the ?edge? on client service engagements. Deloitte innovates by harnessing innovation that happens at the edge, bringing it back to the core, and then pushing it back out to the edge. Compare this to product companies where innovation is driven at times by the core.

Deloitte consultants continually think of new ways to help solve their clients? business problems by leveraging thousands of experiments in the field. Innovation for Deloitte is about accelerating the process of finding and refining good ideas at the core, and then pushing them back out to the edge ? speeding up the process of turning personal innovation that happens in the field into institutionalized innovation that can be systematically delivered to our clients.

Deloitte recognizes challenges to this "Edge" model. Specifically, on how to find ways to efficiently and effectively commercialize the ideas happening at the ?edge.? Deloitte has created Talent Innovation centers, and Strategy, Research and Innovation Groups, Innovation Quests, and Centers of Excellence as part of the Client Innovation Services to create game changing innovations.

One of the interesting creations is the Enterprise Value Map: a tool that gives a comprehensive view of all the drivers of value in an organization. It has now morphed into a comprehensive Value Map that all Deloitte clients benefit from.

Talent Innovation

Deloitte has tried hard to create a "youthful" yet "energetic" image of a company on the move towards hiring new talent, by developing innovative approaches to the attraction, retention and development of key talent. From a different approach to career management, to dealing with generational differences, to women and diversity needs, and fostering a culture of learning and coaching - Deloitte does all of the above to harness world class talent. Deloitte consistently ranks in the 100 best places to work, and 50 best places to launch a career.

Internal Innovations driven by India Team

Deloitte started to move services in India in 2000, making it one of the first professional services firms to create an offshore India center.
The key Deloitte difference:
Not just offshoring of back-office but also client-facing functions, all delivered with high standards of quality that Deloitte is known for.
The lower cost of employing talent in India has a significant impact on ROI; at the same time, the high quality work delivered by the offshore group has a significant impact on Deloitte's growth.

The Innovation Highway

So where exactly is Deloitte on the Innovation Highway? Deloitte admits that in the past, the innovations at Deloitte were "Distributed Reactive" a condition it tactfully describes as: Innovation that happened at the edge, was chronically under-invested and usually following another?s lead. Whereas today, Deloitte Innovation is "Programmed Proactive" - where Deloitte is proactively focused on connecting the edge to the core (e.g. Innovation Quest), by challenging some norms, and realizing that it is not just a means to an end. However, Deloitte wants Creativity and Innovation to be "Culturally Ingrained" tomorrow - innovation as part of Deloitte's core DNA (processes, people, and technology), innovation as efficient and effective, and as an externally recognized differentiator. A big portion of this is removing obstacles, and finding a way to say ?yes", by failing fast and forward, however learning from the experience.

I asked Rick one key question: "What innovations drive new business at Deloitte?"
Rick Rayson: "Innovation at Deloitte occurs every day with the hundreds of client service teams and thousands of professionals who create solutions for our clients. The key is to assimilate these innovations occurring at the "edge" to the entire organization to drive new services to our clients on a broad basis."

Strategic Innovations at Deloitte - From the "Edge" to the "Core" back to the "Edge" Fast - You get the picture!

Download my Creativity and Innovation eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia...Learn more
Download Now

About Rick Rayson

Managing Partner Rick Rayson (Deloitte & Touch LLP) is the leader of Orange County Practice, overseeing the Deloitte U.S. Firms' subsidiaries providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services. Rick has been with Deloitte for more than 27 years. Rick is advisory partner on many of the practice's major clients, and is actively involved in the Orange County business community. He is a member of the University of California, Irvine Chief Executive Roundtable, and is on the Dean's Advisory Board for UCI's Paul Merage School of Business.

Related Stories:
Creativity And Innovation Best Practices
Made in India - Innovations in Software Operations at the Top Innovators
Introducing The Innovation Index
Top 50 Innovative Companies in the world

Originally published in 2008. Republished in 2009.