Channel Innovation

I like paper in my day to day work life. I do a lot on my computer, but many times I jot todos, notes and observations down. The Franklin Planner, my original time management paper planner resulted in signing up for and completing an MBA program. Somewhere along my paper journey I found Levenger for pens and notebooks and later Circa. Circa is a binding system for notebooks based upon discs and specially punched paper that allows you to pull out and reposition the paper. I was thrilled. I shared with colleagues and friends and eventually, I needed to find out where they came up with this idea.

The idea came from someone else! Shock! A company called Rollabind. They made products for schools, notebooks and scrapbooking. They weren't the greatest looking products at the time. You could buy a bag of multicolor discs but what would I do with the pink ones?

Levenger found a great idea and introduced it to a new channel as an even better idea. Black discs, various high quality ruled papers, clean planner-competing sizes and leather covers. Black, brown red. It fit very nicely into their offering of the finest office products around. Their prices were also a bit higher than the purple discs of Rollabind.

Understanding channels characteristics and insights are important part of innovation. How you introduce, shape, price and manage your product offering in particular channels are essential for success. Yellow discs may not have brought Levenger the same level of success.

Pickle Process

I came across an Vlasic Pickle advertisement from over a year ago. It caught my attention because it was a process innovation for their customers. It seems food service customers would often have to pour the pickles from the jar into a square container that fits on a buffet line. This of course would mean a pickle jar to dispose of and a square buffet container to wash. So Vlasi packaged their sliced pickles in square container that would fit into the buffet tables. Saving thier customers labor costs and material costs. They had pickle charts (instead of pie charts) to prove it.

Thinking critically about how your product is used can bring insights into improvements and innovation that can be implemented around the product. These typed of ideas in a homogenous trade can bring competitive advantage.

Barriers to Innovation and the Importance of Pilot

The New York Times recently wrote about going green in the hospitality industry. The Hilton Palacio del Rio in San Antonio replaced more than 400 toiles with dual-flush models saving an estimated 600,000 gallons of water per month without a single complaint about the toilets. The hold up for other hotel chains is a perceived or expressed concern that consumers aren't sure if they would work.

Journalists write, bloggers blog and consumers when asked to have an opionion will be sure to have one. Testing in context is important. Gaining reaction in an experiential environment can bring closer perspectives than a survey. Granted measure toilet usage can be a bit tricky. Installing in test rooms or locations can be a small step. Dual flush gives consumers an option to save water and solving water usage problems is something US consumers can live with.

New Product to Market

Bringing innovative new ideas to market can be a humbling experience. At Mindscape we recently launched a new web offering. We answered our clients' problem of keeping up with the velocity of change on the internet with a managed environment that we could leverage across our base to keep them cutting edge up to date. We assumed cost as an issue and focused on a managed services model, where we could pass savings on to the client. We save them money; they stay up to date - a win-win.

We overestimated thier concern about costs, undervalued the solution and at first missed the mark. Cost wasn't the main issue so focusing on total cost of ownership only confused our message. Clients felt we had underestimated their needs because of our passed on savings. Price did not meet expectations for the level of expected quality and comprehensiveness. Their worries zeroed in on the technology itself.

A new business partner summed it up best for us. Tell them they "never have to worry about hardware or software again"

Being smart doesn't mean there's a need. Even in supply side innovation, matching customer needs is as important as the invention. Find the pain, find the worry...