It’s Amazon versus everybody!  The issue is called showrooming, and it threatens to give e-tailers like Amazon huge advantages over their brick and mortar competitors. These traditional retailers will need to move fast to avoid having the rug pulled out from under them.

What is showrooming, you ask?  It’s a deviously clever trick (otherwise known as an innovative business model) that Amazon has devised to turn every retail store in America (er, the world?) into a local Amazon showroom.

I’ve just written an article titled Amazon versus Everybody – A Case for Business Model Innovation.   In the article, I describe an approach for traditional retailers to effectively combat Amazon’s attempts to “showroom” them.  I hope you’ll check it out.

This post is a slight diversion from our usual topics.  However, one of the key underlying principles of our High Performance Innovation approach is that it takes more than great technology to successfully innovate (also known as getting to market).  In the case of showrooming, Amazon has used the power of mobile technology to give their customers impressive, competitive pricing knowledge in the palms of their hands.  In doing so, Amazon has also laid the foundation to actually steal a retailer’s customers right off of his sales floor!  Clever, to say the least.

You can read the article here.

Let’s get to market!

Len

Two bills, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House of Representatives and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) in the Senate, are currently racing through Congress with little to no input from the Internet and innovation communities.  It is our belief that the effort to impose such severe restrictions on the Internet will have significant long-term consequences on the Internet and innovation.    Teknolio believes that the most effective innovation tool ever devised by man is a free and vibrant Internet, and we are staunchly opposed to SOPA and PIPA.    Powerful American content owners are behind the move to impose these wrong-headed regulations.

So, you’re not sure what SOPA and PIPA are, or why this is such an important issue?  Watch these two videos to get the real info on why SOPA and PIPA are so onerous!

…and here is a slightly less technical version:

And to take action, visit these sites:

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

In case you’re wondering, under the proposed SOPA/PIPA rules, this blog post’s reposting of the two videos is probably enough to get www.teknolio.com shut down!

Join Teknolio in standing up and taking action to stop SOPA and PIPA.

Thanks!

Carl Schramm, Kauffman’s president, says that entrepreneurs do three super important things:

1. Create most of the new, innovative products and services
2. Create ALL of the net new jobs in the society (at least that’s the case in the United States where I live)
3. Create ALL of the new net wealth in the society.

The bad news is that most innovations fail to reach the marketplace.  (Harvard Business School says that up to 95% of all new product introductions fail¹.)  Furthermore, I said that we have found that the majority of the failures we see are non-technical in nature.  Projects tend to fail not because of bad technology, but rather due to poor commercialization planning and execution.

The good news is that you do not have to be victimized by these awful innovation failure rates.  I introduced Teknolio’s High Performance Innovation Framework^SM as a methodology to overcome these commercialization problems and thus improve the number of innovations that successfully reach the market.  And, I stated that this Framework is based on two “big ideas:”

Big Idea #1:   Innovation Success = Market Success

Big Idea #2:   It takes more than great inventions to create successful innovation.

So now, let’s dive a little deeper into the High Performance Innovation Framework and see what it’s about.

The High Performance Innovation Framework^SM is an innovation methodology that is designed to effectively deliver products and services to the marketplace.  It does this by identifying and avoiding the kinds of commercialization errors that most often derail the product development and introduction process.  It is a holistic process that focuses the entire organization on the desired innovation outcomes by more tightly integrating the organization’s “market-facing” functions with its “technology-producing functions.”  This holistic-integrated innovation approach is implemented through five key strategies.  These are:

1.  Early Market Engagement – innovation teams that understand and consult with their markets throughout the innovation process have the highest likelihood of successfully entering that market.  Here’s why: Innovators who are well-connected to their markets tend to understand the needs and wants of their target users and buyers better than those who are not well-connected.

2.  Target Market Validation – Product projects tend to fail due to errors in the commercialization or go-to-market plans. From our experience in working with hundreds of innovation teams around the world, we believe that the single greatest contributor to innovation failure is poor or non-existent validation of the innovation’s target market.  The solution is an effective market validation process.

3.  Multi-Disciplinary Teams – Successful innovation is a team sport.  It takes more than good technology to ensure successful innovation.  Therefore, the most effective and successful innovation processes will be supported by a team that consists of more than technologists alone.

4.  Industry and Expert Feedback – The best approach to gaining a better understanding of your market is to get outside of the protective walls of your laboratory or cubicle and talk with real people.  Well-planned innovation strategies employ the knowledge and expertise of real people in the target market.

5.  Fact-Based Go-To-Market Roadmap – In order to succeed, the innovation team must develop a fact-based, actionable plan that identifies and removes the commercialization pitfalls throughout its entire organization, meaning from the R&D lab to the customer help desk.

Having great technology is important, but there is so much more to creating successful innovation and market success.  Implementing these five strategies will help you and your teams to create high-performance commercialization roadmaps that will help you identify, and then avoid, the kinds of problems that commonly lead to innovation failure.  Using the High Performance Innovation Framework^SM will result in significantly better product introduction results.

So, let’s summarize.  The bad news is that most innovations fail.  The good news is that you don’t have to.  Equipped with the right tools and the proper perspective, you can succeed where so many others will fail.  The High Performance Innovation Framework can help you ensure that success!

If you’d like to learn more about High Performance Innovation, we’d like to share with you our totally free and totally informative Exploring High Performance Innovation ecourse with you.  In this self-paced, seven session course, you’ll learn more about the five key success strategies, plus a few extras as well.  It’s a convenient and risk-free way to learn more about the strategy that could make all the difference for you.  To learn more or to enroll visit: http://goo.gl/TN3Sq.  Sign up today!

I’d like to hear what you think.  Share your comments in the box below.

Best…Len

P.S.  I’d like to hear what you think.  Share your comments in the Reply box below.

References:

1.  Milkshake Marketing, HBS Working Knowledge, Clayton Christensen PhD, 14 Feb 2011, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6496.html

Bringing a new product or service to market is hard work.  If you’re engaged in innovation, the process of developing and introducing new products and services to the market, then you know how challenging this job can be.  To succeed, you must bring together winning technology with the right combination of commercial factors to create a desirable product for the right market at the right price.

The statistics for innovation success are sobering, at best.  The fact is that most innovation projects fail in their attempt to deliver a successful product or service to the market.  According to famed Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, 95% of all product introductions in the United States fail¹.  And in his recent book, University of Texas at Austin business school professor Rob Adams states that American companies spend more than $250 billion dollars per year on failed innovation projects².

These failure rates are simply startling!  Furthermore, these statistics include not only young start-up companies, but also some of the finest companies in America. (I can assume that similar results exist in other regions of the world.) Innovators are an optimistic group, and most doubt that this could ever happen to them.  However, study after study points to similar results.

Now, for some good news!  This does not have to happen to you!

The High Performance Innovation Framework

At Teknolio, we’ve developed the High Performance Innovation Framework^SM as a way to address these high innovation failure rates.  We’ve worked with hundreds of innovation teams around the world, and we’ve seen our share of trials and failures in bringing new products to market.  As a result of our experiences, we’ve built the Framework on two “big ideas.”

The first big idea is that innovation success = market success.  Simply stated, successful innovation is about getting new products (and services) to market.  There are many definitions for “innovation,” as well as many ways to measure it.  However, the real value in innovation is the creation of wealth and the solving of real problems.  Both wealth creation and problem solutions only occur when new technologies reach the market in the form of successful products and services.  Hence, High Performance Innovation is about getting new products and services to market!

The second big idea is that it takes more than great inventions to create successful innovation.  As we stated above, most innovations fail.  However, our experience has shown that most innovations fail for non-technical reasons!  In most cases, a project failed not because the technology was faulty, but rather because either the design or execution of the commercialization plan was flawed.

So, in the midst of these staggering failure rates, could this actually be good news?

Yes!

Why?

Because these commercialization problems are imminently fixable!

We’ll unpack this a bit more in the next post.  Stay tuned!

Best…Len

P.S.  I’d like to hear what you think.  Share your comments in the Reply box below.

References:

1.  Milkshake Marketing, HBS Working Knowledge, Clayton Christensen PhD, 14 Feb 2011, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6496.html

2.  If You Build It Will They Come?, Rob Adams PhD, Wiley, 2010

Although our initial launch of the Academy is on a small scale (call it a beta, if you will) we envision big things down the road.  We plan to bring a wide array of training and expertise to our global community with the common goal of helping you to create your own High Performance Innovation.

If you are new to the High Performance Innovation Framework, I encourage you to take advantage of one or more of our free resources.  For a quick introduction, sign-up for one of our live, online webinars.  For a more in-depth look at the five key strategies underlying the Framework, you’ll want to sign up for our free e-course.  Both are easy, risk-free ways to see how High Performance Innovation can dramatically improve your innovation results.

We also offer paid courses as part of our High Performance Innovator Series.  These courses are designed to equip you with the knowledge, tools and coaching that you need to implement High Performance Innovation in your organization.  Be sure to check out our Target Market Validation 101 and 202 courses at www.teknolio.com/academy to learn more.

And be sure to keep an eye on this blog space, as we’ll be adding more course content every few weeks.

All the best to you,

Len Denton

By: Len Denton

Attention innovators!  I have some bad news for you and some good news for you.

Let’s start with the bad news.

Most people are not interested in your technology!  That’s right.  Most people that you are designing your technology to help are not really interested in it at all.  Not in the least.

But wait, there is more bad news.  Did you know that investors aren’t that interested in your technology either?  Pretty sad, huh?

As scientists, engineers and tech entrepreneurs, we tend to spend most of our time focused on the tangible, technical aspects of our innovation.  We see the merit in the technology itself, and we expect others to see it as well.  The truth, however, is that most people do not want technology.

Did I mention that there is some good news?

The good news is, while most people don’t want technology, they do want solutions to their problems that are based on technology.  People buy products and services that solve their problems.  They generally do not buy technology.

And what about the investors?  Smart investors don’t invest in technology, but they do invest in good business opportunities.  If your technology can become a good business opportunity, investors will be eager to become a part of it.  Just don’t expect them to be overly taken by the technology itself.

So, the bad news is that people don’t buy technology.  And investors don’t invest in technology.

But, the good news is that if your technology can be translated into a product or service that meets a need or solves a problem, people will buy it.  And if your technology can be turned into a viable business, investors will invest.

The connections between having a good technology and having a desirable product and a viable business are complex.  Remember, most innovations fail.  They tend to fail because they were strong on technology and weak on product and business.  You need careful planning to ensure that your great technology becomes a great innovation.

Best…Len