Validation from the rest of the world

Distech Controls is another Canadian company that has had success in most places except in its home country. Distech's founder, Etienne Vellieux, brings up the French saying, "A preacher is always better thought of in another town," which may explain why despite innovation as a differentiator in the building controls industry, growing a customer base here has eluded them. That may not be such a big deal because the company has experienced double digit growth for the last several years. The U.S., China and Dubai have been key drivers of that growth.

In looking for innovative companies in Canada that have had success here too, the list seems to be short. WestJet and RIM are often mentioned but some others have become better known recently such as Kaboose and Webkinz. Why? They are two Canadian companies that have managed to strike a chord with children while still appeasing the concerns of parents about children and the internet. Their subscriber growth might be indicative that children are more receptive to innovation. Having said that, Canadians, young and old, seem to be a contradiction with respect to adoption. While so many examples of Canadians waiting for validation of innovation elsewhere exist, it is interesting to note that we were one of the fastest adopting nations of debit cards and Toronto represents one of the largest single groups on Facebook in competition with London.

Maybe innovative success for a Canadian company will come from tapping into that adoptive mindset.

Meeting An Unidentified Need

Some innovators such as Akio Morita, founder of Sony, talked about satisfying appetites that people didn’t even know they had.

In the article, The Risk of Innovation: Will Anyone Embrace It?, G. Pascal Zachary examines the problem innovators face in getting people to adopt their innovation. He goes on to say that killer apps are sought-after innovations because people get addicted to them and make behavioral changes that might otherwise be unthinkable. “Those who benefit from a technology adapt to its constraints and become dependent on it,” says John Staudenmaier, editor of the journal Technology and Culture and a historian of technology at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Finding that sweet spot between providing enough innovation and lowering the threshold of constraints enough to increase speed to market will be the innovator's ongoing challenge.

Innovation and Insurance in the same sentence? No way!

The Annual Report on the Global Innovation 1000 from Booz Allen Hamilton is out now and it focuses heavily on the return on R & D expenditure as a performance metric. Furthermore, it tends to devote most of the discussion to product oriented companies.

At least one of the companies that they praise, DeWalt, devotes a great deal of time to observing customers using their tools and soliciting their feedback throughout the innovation process.

As much as DeWalt's efforts are admirable, I am a little fatigued by the discussion of innovation focusing on products. Yes, innovation is important, even critical, with product companies but where are the innovative service companies? When you think about all the poor customer service people endure every single day then why don't we hear more about someone offering innovative service? I know that such companies exist but where are they and what do they do that is innovative?

I have had the good fortune to speak to organizations that help service companies innovate. Companies like Ignite Consulting and Live|Work. It is worth noting that both are based in the UK and talked about the prevalence of service companies there.

Ignite worked with a telecom company that wanted to significantly shift service enquiries from its call centres to the internet. The website's then current design was not focusing on problem-solving but on selling products and services.

Ignite took them to look at the NHS Direct website, which gives the user the option of looking at a diagram of a body and clicking on where it hurts. The user can choose one of three possible outcomes: a diagnosis, provision of useful information, or call a doctor. This graphical approach provided the inspiration the telecom company needed to completely rethink their approach to on-line support and extend the doctor and nurse analogy to other areas of their service strategy.

Another example that came out of my discussions was PruHealth(a.k.a. Prudential Health). Here is a health insurance company that actually gives money back to customers through their Vitality programme to reward them for leading healthier lives. Who would have thought that the words innovation and insurance could appear in the same sentence? Now that's service innovation.

The next time you are biting your tongue while you endure another session on hold or navigate some sort of bureaucratic process gauntlet with a service provider, just imagine what could be done to improve the experience. Why isn't someone observing you and your experience or truly soliciting your feedback in order to make improvements to their service through innovation? Perhaps it's because so many service providers have either become complacent or simply feel that the cost of innovation outweighs the improvement to customer service they stand to gain.

The following quote from an innovator sums up cost as an obstacle, "Innovation in the private sector needs to be separated out from doing business as one makes money and one spends money. You can't mix one with the other as Innovation needs funding and time, both are counter to making your annual revenue targets!"

As I have mentioned in the past, innovation is sometimes seen as an indulgence but, in many ways, can companies afford not to innovate? Surely service companies can afford to innovate because the cost in both time and money can't be as much as in the case of a product company. Also, the results can likely be seen more easily and more immediately. The innovation efforts could potentially be applied incrementally into the mandates of those involved to reduce or eliminate the prospect of the innovation being a costly disruption to the way they currently do business.

Even a product company can apply this approach to the service part of the business. Look at how Apple engages a customer both during and after a purchase. The retail experience is not driven by commission but by helping the customer find the right technical tools for their goals. Once they have made that purchase the support experience at the Genius bar beats any technical sales experience in Best Buy or other similar stores hands down. Also the tutorials to help new Mac users make the transition from Windows help to build loyalty to the brand and the technology. These efforts have forced the other manufacturers to sit up and take notice.

Learning About Innovation From Unexpected Places

For several years now, Fast Company Magazine and Monitor Consulting have been compiling a list of non-profit organizations as part of their Social Capitalist Awards and what struck me as interesting was how some of them used innovative approaches in order to achieve their objectives.

One organization that stood out was Reach Out and Read. They involve doctors and nurses as reading evangelists and get volunteers to read to kids while they're waiting, showing parents how it's done.

Is it possible to apply such thinking in the corporate world? Now I am not suggesting to look for situations where people or things are idle and set them in motion on some task to improve utilization. What I am suggesting is that we need to heighten our awareness or apply mindfulness so that we find opportunities where they might not have been evident before.

Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology, at Harvard University and author of On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity, provides help on how to increase mindfulness and, as a result, find opportunity for innovation.