Business Innovation: The Question to the Answer
Ken Olan
October 23, 2006
A few articles ago I shared some insights on how virtually anyone can think more like the great geniuses of the world. In that article entitled Creative Thinking is Formula for Genius, I offered some ideas on how simply changing the questions you ask can dramatically improve the results you achieve.
In this article we'll further explore the power of thought and look at some ideas about how innovative thinking can propel a business to unprecedented levels of success.
Although a single article doesn’t allow for us to cover the many ways of implementing "innovative thinking" to take advantage of potential business opportunities, we can look at a handful of insightful questions that can help jump-start an innovative breakthrough.
Almost without exception the companies I work with have established a comfort level in their way of doing things. While it's natural to want to be comfortable, in today’s business environment being too comfortable can be lethal.
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), K-Mart, Eastern Airlines and the big U.S. auto makers, among others, discovered this concept, the hard way.
Well-positioned innovative thinking can unleash an enormous amount of potential for business success. It’s important to note that while innovation is often associated with technology, these concepts can be used for any type of innovation including marketing approaches, customer service and so on.
Let’s take a quick look at a few questions that will help you jump-start the innovative process in your organization.
Ask yourself these questions:
Q: What would my organization have to do, or to create, to put itself out of business?
This question is powerful and one you simply must consider if you hope to stay in business, because if you don’t have the answer to this question, someone else will come up with one for you.
I’m involved with a start-up company that shows strong promise for changing the way companies hire both employees and temps through a new internet-based model. The business model appears sound, but like any other business, the model could eventually be eclipsed by something else if it doesn’t evolve.
To address that truth I asked the company founders to not only focus on developing the current application, which may very well put their would-be competitors out of business, but to start to think, even now, about how to make that model obsolete.
I explained that if we don’t start to think that way from the start, someone else may eventually come up with the answer to that question first and . . . poof . . . no more viable business.
Wal-Mart successfully proved that someone else can come into the retailing industry and overtake what I call “lazy” business models.
While other retailers were smug in their confidence of the “strategies” they employed, Sam Walton found a way to disrupt their business models and attract an obscene number of customers from other discount chains, small mom-and-pop shops and, to some degree, more upscale department stores.
Today Wal-Mart continues to evolve and constantly looks at how to recreate itself to become even better. It’s no secret that they’re one of the largest companies in the world.
Q: Who isn’t currently using my product or service that might start to use it given the right circumstances, and what can I do to increase usage of those already using it?
This is really two questions, but I’ll use one simple example to illustrate the possibilities.
Think oatmeal. I eat oatmeal and like it. But there are some out there who don’t care for a bowl of the hot cereal for one reason or another. So how do you get these non-oatmeal-eaters to eat the stuff? One possibility is to create another use for it.
You may not like a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, but you may very well like oatmeal cookies. That’s one reason Quaker Oats and other companies put recipes for ways to use their product on their packages. The same strategy also encourages those who do like oatmeal cereal to consume more oatmeal by giving them more uses for it. This is a really simple, but often overlooked, strategy.
Another innovative example for using this strategy was discovered by banks, grocery stores and discount chains. Namely, putting a bank within a retail store.
By placing a bank in a high-traffic store (I used to run a bank and used this strategy many times) the store benefits in several ways.
First it attracts bank customers who might not have ordinarily entered that store (a.k.a., not current users). Having a bank in the store where regular customers can bank also provides those customers with yet another reason to come back and shop there, thus creating even greater loyalty of current store customers (a.k.a., increased usage or sales).
The idea was an innovative coup for banks too, since having a bank within a high-traffic store exposed them to a large number of the store’s customers, most of which they may have never otherwise had the opportunity to sell their banking services to.
Q: What can we create that the market doesn’t perceive as available today but would want it if it were available?
I have a friend who asked this question and took advantage of the answer to create a highly successful company.
My friend is a car buff, and he knew that one thing car enthusiasts hate to see is the floors of their “baby” get dirty. He also knew that people who are serious about their car don’t like putting something in the car that changes the look and feel of what they paid for, particularly for high-end automobiles.
Traditionally, the only option available to keep both the floor of their car and their new floor mats clean was to buy the rather unattractive cover mats available at a discount store. Those not only look cheap but usually don’t perfectly fit the floor to boot. That’s bad karma for car lovers.
Enter ExactMats™, a clear, soft floor mat that is custom cut to the exact specifications of the car you have. They fit perfectly, look great, are priced right and do their job of keeping the floor clean. All of these benefits were not available in a single product until ExactMats™ came along.
The company now does business with hundreds of car dealerships across the country providing this unique product to thousands of people who wanted this particular solution. I have a set of my own, by the way.
Q: Who is our company or our industry over-serving, and how can we create something more appealing for those customers and increase profits at the same time?
Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, asked these questions in one form or another. Southwest’s business model works because airline travel had become commoditized with a lot of big, established airlines continuing to do things their customers really didn’t consider all that important (i.e., served “delicious” meals and boarded them according to where they sat on the plane.)
Kelleher knew that passengers increasingly just wanted to get from point A to point B comfortably, enjoyably and at the lowest possible expense. This particularly applied to the shorter routes.
He saw an opportunity to use innovative thinking and create a highly efficient airline that was friendly, fun, well-priced and operationally innovative. This innovation was accomplished by asking the right questions.
Regardless of the type of business or organization you’re with, innovative thinking can help propel you from being an also-ran to a highly-effective leader in your market or industry. Innovative thinking really is “the question to the answer.”
So, what questions will you ask to grow your business?
Ken Olan is Founder and CEO of Every Advantage, Inc., a Houston-based consultancy which helps bring new thinking and solutions to the areas of innovation, business growth, leadership and customer commitment strategies; the ultimate objective of customer service. You can contact Ken at Ken.Olan@everyadvantage.net
In this article we'll further explore the power of thought and look at some ideas about how innovative thinking can propel a business to unprecedented levels of success.
Although a single article doesn’t allow for us to cover the many ways of implementing "innovative thinking" to take advantage of potential business opportunities, we can look at a handful of insightful questions that can help jump-start an innovative breakthrough.
Almost without exception the companies I work with have established a comfort level in their way of doing things. While it's natural to want to be comfortable, in today’s business environment being too comfortable can be lethal.
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), K-Mart, Eastern Airlines and the big U.S. auto makers, among others, discovered this concept, the hard way.
Well-positioned innovative thinking can unleash an enormous amount of potential for business success. It’s important to note that while innovation is often associated with technology, these concepts can be used for any type of innovation including marketing approaches, customer service and so on.
Let’s take a quick look at a few questions that will help you jump-start the innovative process in your organization.
Ask yourself these questions:
Q: What would my organization have to do, or to create, to put itself out of business?
This question is powerful and one you simply must consider if you hope to stay in business, because if you don’t have the answer to this question, someone else will come up with one for you.
I’m involved with a start-up company that shows strong promise for changing the way companies hire both employees and temps through a new internet-based model. The business model appears sound, but like any other business, the model could eventually be eclipsed by something else if it doesn’t evolve.
To address that truth I asked the company founders to not only focus on developing the current application, which may very well put their would-be competitors out of business, but to start to think, even now, about how to make that model obsolete.
I explained that if we don’t start to think that way from the start, someone else may eventually come up with the answer to that question first and . . . poof . . . no more viable business.
Wal-Mart successfully proved that someone else can come into the retailing industry and overtake what I call “lazy” business models.
While other retailers were smug in their confidence of the “strategies” they employed, Sam Walton found a way to disrupt their business models and attract an obscene number of customers from other discount chains, small mom-and-pop shops and, to some degree, more upscale department stores.
Today Wal-Mart continues to evolve and constantly looks at how to recreate itself to become even better. It’s no secret that they’re one of the largest companies in the world.
Q: Who isn’t currently using my product or service that might start to use it given the right circumstances, and what can I do to increase usage of those already using it?
This is really two questions, but I’ll use one simple example to illustrate the possibilities.
Think oatmeal. I eat oatmeal and like it. But there are some out there who don’t care for a bowl of the hot cereal for one reason or another. So how do you get these non-oatmeal-eaters to eat the stuff? One possibility is to create another use for it.
You may not like a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, but you may very well like oatmeal cookies. That’s one reason Quaker Oats and other companies put recipes for ways to use their product on their packages. The same strategy also encourages those who do like oatmeal cereal to consume more oatmeal by giving them more uses for it. This is a really simple, but often overlooked, strategy.
Another innovative example for using this strategy was discovered by banks, grocery stores and discount chains. Namely, putting a bank within a retail store.
By placing a bank in a high-traffic store (I used to run a bank and used this strategy many times) the store benefits in several ways.
First it attracts bank customers who might not have ordinarily entered that store (a.k.a., not current users). Having a bank in the store where regular customers can bank also provides those customers with yet another reason to come back and shop there, thus creating even greater loyalty of current store customers (a.k.a., increased usage or sales).
The idea was an innovative coup for banks too, since having a bank within a high-traffic store exposed them to a large number of the store’s customers, most of which they may have never otherwise had the opportunity to sell their banking services to.
Q: What can we create that the market doesn’t perceive as available today but would want it if it were available?
I have a friend who asked this question and took advantage of the answer to create a highly successful company.
My friend is a car buff, and he knew that one thing car enthusiasts hate to see is the floors of their “baby” get dirty. He also knew that people who are serious about their car don’t like putting something in the car that changes the look and feel of what they paid for, particularly for high-end automobiles.
Traditionally, the only option available to keep both the floor of their car and their new floor mats clean was to buy the rather unattractive cover mats available at a discount store. Those not only look cheap but usually don’t perfectly fit the floor to boot. That’s bad karma for car lovers.
Enter ExactMats™, a clear, soft floor mat that is custom cut to the exact specifications of the car you have. They fit perfectly, look great, are priced right and do their job of keeping the floor clean. All of these benefits were not available in a single product until ExactMats™ came along.
The company now does business with hundreds of car dealerships across the country providing this unique product to thousands of people who wanted this particular solution. I have a set of my own, by the way.
Q: Who is our company or our industry over-serving, and how can we create something more appealing for those customers and increase profits at the same time?
Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, asked these questions in one form or another. Southwest’s business model works because airline travel had become commoditized with a lot of big, established airlines continuing to do things their customers really didn’t consider all that important (i.e., served “delicious” meals and boarded them according to where they sat on the plane.)
Kelleher knew that passengers increasingly just wanted to get from point A to point B comfortably, enjoyably and at the lowest possible expense. This particularly applied to the shorter routes.
He saw an opportunity to use innovative thinking and create a highly efficient airline that was friendly, fun, well-priced and operationally innovative. This innovation was accomplished by asking the right questions.
Regardless of the type of business or organization you’re with, innovative thinking can help propel you from being an also-ran to a highly-effective leader in your market or industry. Innovative thinking really is “the question to the answer.”
So, what questions will you ask to grow your business?
Ken Olan is Founder and CEO of Every Advantage, Inc., a Houston-based consultancy which helps bring new thinking and solutions to the areas of innovation, business growth, leadership and customer commitment strategies; the ultimate objective of customer service. You can contact Ken at Ken.Olan@everyadvantage.net
Print
Email
