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| Joachim De Posada |
By Joachim De Posada
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The great need for innovation in the world
As I write this article, I am in Cancun, Mexico
where I was hired to do a very successful company, based in Central America
with over a 125,000 employees and a presence in dozens of countries.
What motivates me to write this article is what the
CEO said to me when he invited me to lunch in a wonderful restaurant here in
Cancun, named La Destileria.
“One of the biggest problems in my company is
execution. Everyone has great ideas but few are implemented”
This is a very true statement, one I have heard in
many of the companies I have worked with. It is in fact, one of the biggest
problems in many organizations, including of course, government entities.
Let’s first define innovation: A simple definition
would be the practical application of creative ideas, a short and sweet
definition.
The key word here is practical. No matter how
creative you are, if you don’t land the idea and execute it, nothing happens.
I agree with management guru Peter Drucker who
said:
To be effective, an innovation has to be simple,
and it has to be focused. It should only do one thing, otherwise it confuses
people.
In today’s highly competitive world, with uncertain
economic conditions, innovation is much more than developing new products.
Traditionally this is how people associate innovation, developing new and
exciting products.
When innovation is mentioned we first think of
Steve Jobs and Apple computer. We think of Microsoft with the idea of having
one personal computer in every home. The Google kids who had the idea of giving
anyone the ability to find out anything in the world by simply searching for
it.
Now innovation is also about reinventing business
processes and building entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs.
With the internet and this globalization push we
are all now experiencing, the pool of new ideas has widened considerably. It is all about selecting and executing the
right ideas and applying them much faster than any time in history.
Innovation can be a product such as the I-Pad, a
car that parks itself, a java chip Frappuccino, or a service, texting on an
smart phone, repairing the screen of an I-Pad or a process, taking your car to
a dealership and getting it back in one day instead of 3 days. In fact, several
years ago a Toyota dealership in Central America hired us to speed up cars
getting out of the repair shop after the clients dropped them off.
When we studied the processes they were using, we
found that they had over 50 steps before the mechanic touched the car and it
took four and a half days average to deliver the repaired car. We took it down
to just a few steps and brought the average time down to a little bit over one
day, I think a day and one hour. Now it is down to one day on average.
A radical innovation is an innovation that is life
changing or world changing.
It might have the power to dramatically change
behavior of people, change their expectations, even their life experiences. It
can give a company a competitive advantage that could remain for many years.
For example, Apple started the I pad on April 23rd
2008. Only five people were on the design/programming team. It was very complex
programming it then making all the apps able to fit the screen and some other
difficult stuff that took them over two years to launch. Apple began taking pre
orders on March 12, 2010.
To date close to one hundred million I pads have
been sold worldwide.
This innovative idea changed the company and it has
changed the world. They have over 80% of the market today, three years after it
was launched.
Some of the companies that tried to copy it such as
RIM and HP went into the market and quickly got out.
Samsung is giving them a run for their money with a
new tablet they have invented.
A good idea is not automatically an innovation. Art
Fry who invented the Post it Notes said: “An idea doesn’t become an innovation
until it is widely adopted and incorporated into people’s lives”.
The point is we need innovation and innovation
comes from individuals, companies, teams, anyone that is a detective searching
for a solution to a real problem, a perceived problem or an invisible problem.
We have lots of problems now in our society and in
the world but there will always be people that will come out with an idea that
will carry us forward.
A big hurray to innovators all over the world.
By the way, if you ever come to Cancun, go to
Harry's, it is one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten in.
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