Innovation driven by limitation
More money = more innovation? Wrong! Based on my experience, I believe it’s often just the other way around. Large corporations typically have many resources to drive business objectives. In many cases, business goals are met by doing more (or more efficient) of what worked in the past. Why take a risk with something new, uncertain, especially when senior leaders have limited expertise with it and you may be blamed for a potential failure?
I recall the launch of a new, very good medicine where the marketing team benchmarked the best launches of recent brands. Then they increased each of the activities those brands used with 50% like number of ads, sales force visits, reminder items and customer engagement events. It worked: the brand became the most successful launch in history. This was in the 1990s. It may not work in the current era of new technologies, increased and faster competition and huge information overload.
It’s even more challenging in smaller markets and for smaller brands: resources are more limited, new approaches need to be created and risks need to be taken. However, I did observe higher levels of innovation in “smaller” countries that had specific limitations. A few examples:
- Israel. The team won several years in a row the corporate Innovation Award. Many innovations in customer engagement and patient access were driven by limited resources and by a generally innovative mindset in the Israeli society due to the specific geographical and political environment. More about this: QR code innovation and Start-up Nation.
- India. This team usually came up with most nominations of any country for the corporate Innovation Awards. This was driven again by very limited resources and the challenge to engage with an extremely large population. More about this: micro financing innovation and Jugaad Innovation.
- Australia. This team created original and quickly implemented innovations. This was driven by the remote location (including being far from a nosy corporate HQ) and a “can do” spirit. More about this, see SPARTA & SPARSH and Google Glass.
A major catalyst in these countries was also the influence of the local Managing Directors personal engagement and championship for commercially innovative ideas.
I did observe a similar innovation mindset in “smaller” brands, which had significantly less resources than the priority ones.
Both small countries and small brands have a strong incentive to be innovative in addressing their business challenges within limited resources. They are also able to experiment “under the radar”, while larger countries/brands often get much more HQ attention and scrutiny (and support). Because there are less employees working in these less resourced countries/brands, it’s also “easier” for a passionate innovator to own the innovation: no need to engage with many colleagues, thus avoiding complicated and often inhibiting coordination.
From a global perspective, a failure in a smaller market/brand is less impactful or damaging than in a large one.
It is important to identify and support these innovators. Also to anticipate how their innovations could be applied to larger countries and/or translated for larger brands, to generate significant business/customer value.
As Ernest Hemingway said:
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I made sure to stay close to the smaller countries/brands, to identify and support innovative experiments. The ultimate goal was to scale successful ones also to the large countries and brands.
More on this: Why Creativity Thrives Under Constraints, by David Burkus (founder of LDRLB )
Please share your opinion!
More of my blogs on innovation: Wim Vandenhouweele
