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.