Vision & Execution’s Weblog

That’s an interesting question in a Web 2.0 world, and it was recently posted as an inquiry on LinkedIn. The question becomes should your core competency be innovation, commercialization of innovation, or both?

Historically innovation has been presumed to be a core competency while commercialization has been much easier to outsource. When you think about the most successful companies, were they successful because they invented a novel solution or because they executed well on an idea whose time had come, or both? The challenge is having the vision and market savvy to identify the idea whose time has come ahead of the curve but not ahead of customer readiness to adopt.

Some large and notable companies are slashing their R&D budgets in favor of Open Innovation platforms such as those below sourcing “big” ideas from outside of the company.

• NineSigma
  leverages a singularly focused approach of posting well-defined tech briefs (needs) to it global network of solvers.
• Yet2 is a global marketplace that lists both “technology needs” and “technologies available”. Yet2’s software engine drives many of the corporate open innovation marketplaces (DuPont, P&G, etc.).
• TekScout
  connects companies (TekScouts) and scientists (TekExperts). The company cites its relationships with over 2000 academic institutions around the world in addition to the TekExperts who join the site directly.
• Innocentive offers a rewards-based approach to open innovation. Problem solvers post technical challenges to network of 140,000 technical solvers. Winning solutions are rewarded via cash awards. Although usually small, the potential reward is up to $1,000,000.

The rise in user communities and social media has enabled many companies to outsource piece parts of the NPD process.

• You can test theories about what will become a trend or track others’ trend projections with edopter.
• Monitor Google Trends and Google Insight for Search for search queries that suggest trends.
• Trendspotting service Trendwatching.com tracks consumer trends.
• SpringWise.com’s network of spotters scan the globe for new business ideas that you can mine.
• Fellowforce’s WebForce 2.1 provides an online suggestion box and customer challenge platform to facilitate co-creation with customers.
• Kluster facilitates internal brainstorming with its group decision making platform. Kluster has an interesting approach to prioritizing ideas as part of its solution.
• redesignme lets customers redesign the look and feel of your products — part customer QA and part customer co-creation.

See Not Invented Here is a Good Thing for more ideas.

While there are many good tools and resources that allow many parts or phases of the product development process to be outsourced, at the end of the day someone needs to translate the input into new business opportunities. It is an art as well as science to discern what new ideas are big marketable ideas. Hopefully you’ll be leveraging these tools soon to advance your business priorities.

There has been talk of being in a recession most of 2008. With the credit crises and stock market swan dive, the debate should have been over. Yesterday’s news made it official – two quarters in a row of declining growth.

Earlier this year, Business Week published an article on the 10 Worst Innovation Mistakes In A Recession. #4 was to stop New Product Development under the assumption that it would save money. In fact, it doesn’t save money, it simply reduces the chances for new revenue streams downstream.

Research conducted by Robert Cooper, President of the Product Development Institute, in 2004 found that new product sales fell from 32.6 percent of total company sales in the mid-1990s to 28 percent. More importantly, the same study showed that profits derived from new products were down from 33.2 percent of business profits to 28.3 percent over the same period. Why? What did companies do differently? Quite simply, companies stopped taking risks — new to world product innovations fell nearly 50% during that same time period accounting for the drop in revenues and profits.

What lessons can you learn from these past mistakes? I hope you will decide that now is not the time to slow down innovation. Your approach to innovation needs to become more productive and efficient. It’s not simply about being more creative but about being brilliant in your execution. How do you mobilize people and keep them focused? How do you explore technical feasibility? How do you identify what will drive adoption? How do you determine who best to partner or align yourself with to realize your vision? And most of all, how do you manage risk?

I wish you great success in these interesting times for new opportunities.

Regards,
Patrina