This is my last post before I take a short sabbatical from this exciting ‘weekend-activity’ of writing posts about Innovation. It has been a very satisfying experience since July 13, ... Read More
Most established companies see startups as competition. It is a natural instinctive reaction for them. Some companies who ask their managers to work with startups find their managers running a ... Read More
In the previous post, I discussed that for emerging trends like Blockchain, IoT, Machine learning to become true, a few breakthroughs will happen. In this post I have discussed yet another ... Read More
In 2018, the predicted technology trends like IoT, augmented/virtual reality, video streaming, social networking, mini-drones, electric vehicles, block-chain, robotics and artificial intelligence point to one more trend – explosion in ... Read More
Driving continuous improvement in processes and products is one of the most important roles of managers but improvements cannot replace the need of innovations – incremental or breakthrough. When it ... Read More
In two of my previous posts (Innovation is an organizational Sport, How do startups and established companies play this sport?), I had explained that innovation is a risky organizational sport in ... Read More
In my post a year ago, I explained that Innovation is an organizational sport. I explained that the starting point for this sport are innovation bets which one places based on ... Read More
This article explains a few changes in Management Accounting to help drive innovation. This is relevant for following audiences: If you are a bold leader or a manager and are not happy ... Read More
In the previous post I explained why Innovations are always top-down. They are never bottom up. I also explained that every manager is at the top of his/her organization and hence can ... Read More
All innovations result in change – either in a process or in a product or in a service. Attempts to make changes to process, product or service result in a ... Read More
Customers and stock markets develop their perception about the current and future products, which serves as a key input to decide the Most Innovative Companies. We see R&D function as ... Read More
Some organizations adopt innovation as an initiative and do whatever they could to make their employees participate in it. In my view, one of the best ways for established organizations ... Read More
Obstinacy and its detrimental effect on innovation was the subject that I discussed in the previous post of May, 2016. In the same post I also referred to ‘Zombie amnesties’, a program through which such projects (that are continuing because of obstinacy) could be discontinued and this act should be celebrated. If company organizes ‘Zombie amnesties’ in which people do come forward and participate, it is a strong indicator that the company has a culture of ‘Freedom to fail’. ... Read More
A lot has been researched and written about the implementation or execution challenges related to Innovation. Perseverance is the key attribute that one needs to have to complete the journey from idea/concept to innovation. Perseverance is important for this journey because one is expected to come across various risks, roadblocks, drags and failures. Like every good thing, Perseverance too has a negative side, which is perhaps known as Obstinacy. In this post, I have made an attempt to explain how and why this transition from Perseverance to Obstinacy happens and what should managers and their supervisors do to avoid and overcome. ... Read More
We need to break this dichotomy (Most profit making and most innovative) and the only way to do is to give appropriate importance to process innovations that save or reduce cost. I urge the ERP companies to provide a solution (which is not difficult and I am ready to support) so that process innovations get their due influence in deciding the most innovative companies of the world. ... Read More
Things have changed in the last several decades. A large part of manual processes have been automated. The IT systems have additionally (through self-service) helped in reducing the variances from the manual processes. This automation has also reduced the efforts that are needed for innovation – but only in the implementation of the idea. There are so many new ways that enable rapid prototyping, which didn’t exist in earlier days. The initial part of innovation that depends on creativity and human interaction is still not automated. ... Read More
In the last few months, I have expressed my views on the challenges that shroud most established companies to innovate as much as they could. Most challenges and related solutions have been discussed in details in my book. During the presentations that I have made in the recent past to explain the key concepts of my book, some new issues have been raised by the audience. I know that the issues raised are confusing and debatable and I too have my own views on them. In this post, I will attempt to explain my response on one such issue raised by several audience – ‘We have been doing PDCA. Doesn’t it enable innovations? If not why?’ ... Read More
‘Market Share’ is a very commonly used term to compare performance of a company amongst its competitors. It is nothing but the ‘Revenue Market Share’ (I call it ‘Share of Revenue’ in this article). In simple terms, it means revenue of the company as a percentage of overall revenue generated by everyone in the same industry. ... Read More
Fortune tellers are quite popular in India and hopefully in many parts of the world. Most of us in India would have shown our hands (mostly right) to palmists who are often visible in Malls, parks, temples, street side and other public places. Many people have a family palmist and there are professional palmists as well. Some of us may have seen a well-known fortune teller (including a palmist) during our bad times in our professional life or personal lives. ... Read More
A ‘promissory note’ is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financial instrument), in which one party (the maker or issuer) promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of money to the other (the payee), either at a fixed or determinable future time or on demand of the payee, under specific terms. ... Read More