Strategem Samosa - Cracking the code on innovation. Chiwda Lives.

Why do humans participate in human interaction in business. Because they have a give an take. They give their time and they take back value.

So how to create value.

• Understand the requirement and identify different ways of creating value.
• Understand the other person and find new ways of appealing to his/her senses. 
• Find Gaps between what the person already gets and deliver the missing.
• Giving back again the same old, same old but at a lower price.

As we saw in the last post  the process of Market Research can be time consuming and requires a lot of discipline.

So the basic simplified version of any research is to set a certain amount of rules and follow it through to get a solution to the problem.

If you refer to one of my earlier posts innovation station. What I missed out in that post was the fact that innovation station needs to be built, just like the Chiwda needs to be positioned as a product in a multiplex.

So to help understand this lets use Chiwda for some more time. (Chiwda is a metaphor, use your core product!)

So we have the objective. - To sell Chiwda.

To sell Chiwda in a Multiplex is an innovation as it has never been done before.  But its not a innovation when others do it as well.

So innovation has to be continuous and consistent. 

So the group selling Chiwda in the multiplex has to have a feedback group (external) which would be reporting them about the delivery, quantity and quality of Chiwda and the audience reaction to it. 

(this works out like VRP's - Value Rating points- for the product).

Also they need to be on a look out for other growth opportunities without diluting the main core. - A good quality Chiwda.

Also dont be myopic and say I am in Chiwda Sales - say I am in Lifestyle food sales.

So to create innovation station there are 2 methods.

1. Internal - Setting time for employees to ideate and take their suggestions. Acknowledge workable suggestions timely and reward them .

Groom the people who can ideate or have the raw material to ideate. Yes 100 ideas will be bad but 2 good ideas mean more profit.

Resources to start something new will always be scarce but I will let you know on a little secret, its not the resources or experince which make ideas work but its the execution and dedication. If you have a team which can do that for you, let them. They may fail. But mostly they wont. If a group of people with a fairly good idea tries honestly, they will do well.

2. External- Setting social media , traditional platforms where people can reach out to you with feedback or suggestions. If you can set up a system where the consumer can give you new ideas or help you promote your product, you can achieve a lot. (see Bazooka Bubblegum).

So set up an innovation Station.

Make mistakes. Have success. Test your waters.

Do comment on this post.

By Ninad Tatke. 

To make the market and to grow it.

If the first stage of marketing is to make sure you have a right product, which is desirable and it is easily available then the next  step can be how to build on such a market. What does a consumer need? Does he need an unique experience or does he need his expectations to be fulfilled.

It is a tricky situation because designing unique experience requires investment in manpower, technology, operations, and other logistical management.

 But just providing satisfaction to a consumer can lead to the brand being a me too as it is not unique.

For example today Pepsi is coming out with Pepsi Max its new zero calorie drink or Intel is coming out with Atom after a hugely successful Core and Pentium . One might say that these are just examples of product innovations are they are not unique experiences. But isn't unique experience something never seen before/felt before. So doesn't it fall under the domain of innovation.

By Ninad Tatke