vol. XVII no. 2

				Page 3 Page 1 2 3 4 5 COMMUNICATIONS "The biggest prerequisite for being innovative is a good system of communication. People need to be able to share ideas up, down and sideways - from the boss to people in other departments," comments Jayant Kale, Board of Advisors Professor of Global Financial Markets. "Regardless of the systems you have in place, it's the people who handle the process of innovation and make the difference." "Something that works very well is cross-functional teams," adds Donthu, "including people from different departments working together. That's the right environment to create innovation." "In addition to cross-functional teams, companies can't forget about serving the customer," offers Rigdon. "Getting away from the customer and how to deliver value to them is a huge mistake that companies make. Innovation is important, but it's got to be innovation with a goal. I think a good goal is to satisfy the needs of the customer." One company, Rigdon notes, that understands the value of cross-functional teams and the importance of focusing on the customer is IDEO. Featured on the cover of BusinessWeek magazine (May 16, 2004), this design firm is helping many Fortune 500 companies redefine their approach to innovation. According to the article, IDEO's five-step process (observation, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, refining and implementation) is "wild and woolly" and emphasizes empathy with the consumer. "When you look at their process, you see that they intentionally bring people from a wide variety of specialties together," comments Ridgon. "At the initial stage, there's a lot of brainstorming, but once they start settling on solutions they move very quickly to prototype." SPEED TO THE MARKET According to many on the panel, speed to market or at least getting a prototype into the hands of customers quickly can be an advantage. "IDEO's methodology seems to convey that they aren't going to mess around with something for six months trying to perfect it before finding out if it's actually going to work," explains Rigdon. "If they've got an idea they're happy with, they mock it up, put it into practice and try it out." "That's an advantage entrepreneurs have," remarks Oviatt. "They get an idea out there and find out whether a customer or potential customer likes it or not." Ridgon offers the example of Rubbermaid as a company that has an idea, gets it into the market and avoids market tests. "Their advantage is their innovation, their designs," he adds. "But they know designs can be quickly copied by other companies that will undercut them in price. They have to avoid market tests and capitalize on their ideas as fast as they can because they have a time limit on how long they can make money on a product, and that starts the clock." But, according to Kale, before you introduce a new product or idea to a customer it's wise to screen the idea using a simple process of benefit versus cost. Previous Page | Top | Next Page

Copyright © 2004 Robinson College of Business/Georgia State University.