Innovation

To maintain growth, a company muståÊlaunch disruptiveåÊnew businesses whenåÊits core units are strong.

A pair of new research studies points to strategies for making the most of technology acquisitions.

Managers don’t have to be told that to innovate they need to embrace drastically different practices from the ones they use for routine work. So why don’t they do it? According to Robert I. Sutton, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Work, Technology and Innovation, when business leaders see what innovation actually requires, they often recoil. The right practices seem strange, even wrongheaded. Understandably, it’s hard for any executive to take action that will lose money today in order to test ideas that might never make money & #8212; in hopes one idea will make money tomorrow. Nevertheless, Sutton contends, that is just what cutting-edge companies do, bravely tackling ideas that at first blush seemed weird. From his research on such organizations, Sutton has developed eight techniques to move teams and companies from working by rote to innovating. The first two techniques are designed to provoke emotions that interrupt mindless action (provoke unpleasant emotions in others; make yourself uncomfortable). The second two are for smashing mindsets (treat everything like a temporary condition; ignore the experts). The third two help people identify and reject their dearest beliefs (plan to do something ridiculous; hold a sacred “cow” workshop). The last two are for exploding the composition of organizations and teams (bring in some slow learners; keep changing the composition of teams). Sutton cautions, however, that the exact methods a company uses to spark novel ideas and actions should differ depending on the situation. He recommends giving people freedom to play around with a wide variety of offbeat notions until bringing in new knowledge and helping people see old things in new ways finally enables the company to break from the past.

User innovation communities present a great advantage over manufacturer-centered development systems.

The external environment for innovation is an important driver, and industrial clusters offer special advantages.

Strategically outsourcing innovation can put a company in a sustainable leadership position.

Even the best-intentioned senior managers may find it difficult to translate aspirations into action, when molding a more market-driven company. Although the underlying principles and prescription of generic change programs offer valuable guidance, a firm must tailor its own change program to the particular challenges it faces in understanding, attracting, and keeping its valuable customers. In this article, Day discusses six conditions that ensure change-process success. He uses the experiences of four corporate change programs (Fidelity Investments; Sears, Roebuck and Co.; Eurotunnel; and Owens Corning) and post-audits of some failed change initiatives to illustrate this change model and explain the necessary conditions for a firm's durable shift to a market orientation. Two pressures initiate a firm's change process: (1) its inclination to focus inwardly and become remote from its customers and unresponsive to competitive challenges; and (2) external market, technology, and competitive forces that pull the business out of alignment with its present market. The interplay of these forces leads to one or more of the following triggers for change: market disruptions that threaten a firm's business model, continuing erosion of market alignment that results in a market disadvantage, strategic necessity, or intolerable opportunity costs. Successful change programs have six overlapping stages: 1. Demonstrating leadership commitment. A leader owns and champions the change, invests time and resources, and creates a sense of urgency. 2. Understanding the need for change. Key implementers understand market responsiveness, know the changes needed, and see the benefits of the initiative. 3. Shaping the vision. All employees know what they are trying to accomplish and understand how to create superior value. 4. Mobilizing commitment at all levels. Those responsible have credibility and know how to form a coalition of supporters to overcome resistance. 5. Aligning structures, systems, and incentives. Key implementers have the resources they need to create a credible plan for alignment. 6. Reinforcing the change. Those responsible know how to start the program and keep attention focused on the change and benchmark measures. Any program to create a market-driven organization must begin quickly but be sustained over many years. Fidelity's approach, which took five years to reach 60 percent completion, resulted in increased customer-retention rates and a doubling of "share of wallet" -- two results that would justify and sustain any firm's change efforts.

To survive today, firms must become adept at developing products that deliver the quality and functionality that customers demand while generating the desired profits. To ensure that products are sufficiently profitable when launched, many firms subject them to target costing, a profit management technique. The authors studied the mature, highly effective target costing systems of seven Japanese companies and documented their costing procedures. Although practices differ among these firms, the authors identified an underlying generic approach for implementing target costing systems. A highly disciplined process, effective target costing comprises the following facets that the authors discuss in detail: -- Market-driven costing consists of three companywide tasks -- setting the company's long-term sales and profit objectives, structuring product lines to achieve maximum profitability, and establishing a product's target selling price -- and two steps applicable to new products -- setting a target profit margin consistent with the company's long-term profit objectives and computing the product's allowable cost (by subtracting the target profit margin from the target selling price). -- Product-level target costing comprises setting a reasonably achievable product-level target cost, imposing discipline upon the development process to attain the target cost (whenever feasible), and achieving the cost goal without sacrificing functionality and quality (primarily through value engineering and other engineering-based cost reduction techniques). -- Component-level target costing includes decomposing the product-level target cost to the major functions or subassemblies (e.g., in a car, the engine, transmission, cooling system, air conditioning system, and audio system), setting component-level target costs, and managing suppliers (clearly conveying to them the competitive cost pressures facing the lean enterprise). The cardinal rule of the companies studied is: "Never exceed the target cost." They enforce this rule in three ways -- by offsetting design improvements that result in increased costs with savings elsewhere in the design, by not launching products that exceed the target cost, and by carefully managing the transition to manufacturing in order to achieve the target cost.

High-performing companies employ dual strategies: they maximize today's capabilities and simultaneously develop new capabilities for the future. In the past, most organizations could run and change their businesses using a single strategy; even today, most companies do not clearly discriminate between present and future. A single-strategy approach, however, cannot meet the challenges created by accelerating competition and change. Strategies for today ensure that functional and supply-chain partner activities are aligned with company strategy and harmonized with organizational structures, processes, culture, incentives, and people. They clarify segment, positioning, and resource deployment choices. Strategies for tomorrow involve decisions about how to define and position the future business. They start with visions of the future -- for example, market territory and forces that might reshape it; competitive moves; strategy options and choices; needed competencies and resources; and knowledge of how to get "there" from "here." Achieving the right balance between a present and a future orientation depends on the situation. During times of rapid or extreme change, the future component claims more attention; during more stable times, the present component predominates. In any situation, however, both components must always be addressed in parallel. Institutionalizing dual strategies requires that companies clearly define leadership responsibilities, balance organizational structures and processes, develop systems for managing duality, and redesign control mechanisms. Implementation must begin at the top. Leaders at all levels of the enterprise must promote the need for dual thinking and communicate the two agendas and their significance to people in every organizational nook and cranny. Dual strategies succeed only if those who need to implement today and change for tomorrow understand the reasons behind each.