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Innovate or Die |
Innovation can come from anywhere, anytime: tinkering in a garage, staring at the stars, or dissecting a customer’s needs. The hard part is managing innovation and nurturing it into a real, live, robust offering that will answer a customer’s need. At Sorelli B, we specialize in "the hard part." We collaborate with our customers using our effective idea generation technology, a technology built from proprietary processes we have developed during our combined 25 years in the marketplace. We have nicknamed our technology the idea garage because it’s a safe place to tinker and experiment with a luscious set of carefully selected tools. The Sorelli B idea garage is right for you if you need a "skunk works" but don’t have any way to create one (or if you don’t even know what a skunk works is! – call us at 909.624.5468 and we’ll explain…) We’re awash in commodity products According to a 2000 study by The Conference Board, 83% of companies report that they are churning out "derivative" products, rather than "exponentially different" ones. This "me too" phenomenon was echoed by Marketing Intelligence Service, Ltd., which reported that of the 25,181 new products launched in 1998, only about 6% of these new products featured original characteristics. Which may explain why… Most new products fail The American Marketing Association notes that 85% of new products fail. They bomb for many reasons. According to a study in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, 43% of firms do not do detailed market studies, and 54% of them don’t bother with trial sell. However, the most frequent reason new products fail is that they simply never meet any customer need. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. No customer problem was solved because the Garage Idea was never driven around the block by anyone but the inventors. Sorelli B test drives your great idea for you. Kainotophobia Another reason for innovation shyness is kainotophobia. A Greek word meaning "fear of change," kainotophobia grips organizations tightest at the very moment when they should embrace change. Kainotophobia is especially intrusive in the new product development process. Managers cling to their current product line (no matter how deplorable), or they fear spending money to improve it. The Conference Board also found this to be true in their 2000 new product survey: "Obstacles to creating breakthrough products include a reluctance to kill poorly performing items," noted The Wall Street Journal in recounting the study (6 July 2000). Kainotophobia allows companies to remain comfortable in the current milieu, and provides an excuse for not speaking to customers or studying competitors’ vulnerabilities. Mostly, kainotophobia is used to beat back internal non conformity! Unfortunately for change-resistant organizations, the more non-conforming the idea, the higher the probability that it will be successful. According to Marketing News, high risk ideas provide 60% of the most successful new products. Idea Garage The irrepressible free thinkers at Sorelli B have learned a few tricks over the years for neutralizing kainotophobia. And we can put these tools to work for you. Even more important, we have given birth to dozens of successful new product ideas – for consumers (such as the GE Soft White Reader® Light), businesses (e.g., Johnson & Johnson worksite wellness services), retail (the Solana Club), and much more. But the critical starting point is the idea generation and screening step that is the Idea Garage. Here, utilizing your company’s criteria, Sorelli B cooks up a colorful assortment of concepts and performs an initial assessment (we crank it up and drive it around the block) The next step is >>> the two-sided brain screen. |
