BQF Innovation

We are familiar with product innovation and with process innovation.  They involve finding new offerings or new ways to do things.  But how do we handle the biggest challenge of all - business model innovation?  This is about discovering and trying an entirely new way for your organisation to operate.

There are some interesting tips and examples from Patrick Medley of IBM in this article in CIO Asia.  He argues that business model innovation is the most important type of innovation to master.  He divides it into three types - revenue model, industry model and enterprise model.  His examples include Cirque du Soleil, Virgin, Bharti, Nokia and IBM.  His conclusion is this, ‘business model innovation is to some extent about survival in long-term business. To survive, you need to be thinking about how you’re going to innovate your business model. Just changing your processes, just changing your products and services—that could just mean you’re going to struggle to survive in the long term. ‘

 Paul Sloane

There is still time to book for the half day conference at the Latimer Centre in Chesham, Bucks on the morning of Wednesday 3 October.  It is entitled - Sharpen your Innovation Skills.  It is a great opportunity to hear leading speakers, to learn new skills and to network with senior executives who share a passion for innovation.  Click here for the brochure with full details.

Paul Sloane

Great and successful companies have to constantly renew themselves.  It is a risky, disruptive and often unpopular process - but it is essential.

I spoke at a business event at Royal Ascot Racecourse this week.  Royal Ascot has a superb brand and a loyal customer set.  It had a perfectly adequate if rather old-fashioned grandstand.  Its leaders decided that they needed a new grandstand.  This was a costly and risky exercise.  It put the Ascot racecourse out of use for a year.  The Royal race meeting was transferred to York.  The new grandstand opened in 2007 - on time and on budget -and it is magnificent.

Royal Ascot could have stayed inside its comfort zone.  It could have continued as a successful and popular racecourse.  But it wanted to be world class.  Instead of satisfying customers it wanted to amaze and delight them.  The risk was worth it.

Successful organisations have to constantly guard against complacency.  They have to keep finding new ways to add value.  IBM took a big risk when it moved out of products and into services.   So did Disney with its first theme park.  And Virgin with an airline.  Longstanding winners like IBM, Disney, Virgin, Nokia, BMW, Sony, Microsoft and Royal Ascot constantly refresh themselves and their offerings.  They take bold steps and move out of their comfort zones.  The alternative is a slow and certain decline.

Paul Sloane

The answer is innovation……

Instead of doom mongering and insisting that everyone stops driving or flying perhaps we should look to the innovative power of science based solutions.  There are many interesting proposals but they do not seem to get much media coverage.  One is to put reflector panels over large areas of desert to reflect the suns beams.  Another is to increase cloud cover in order to reflect sunlight. 

There was a detailed article in last month’s magazine from the Institute of Engineering Technology.  Some of the ideas sound wacky - but so did radio before it became established.  What we need now is funding to test some prototypes.  But it seems that governments are more interested in talking about the dangers of climate change than spending money or small scale experiments that could lead to solutions.

Paul Sloane