A common question about structured innovation is can it be used on services. The answer is yes. A service is the same as a product in many ways, and the approach to using an innovation method like
S.I.T. is the same. Let’s consider a service example for this month’s
LAB. Imagine your company was a leading uniform and apparel rental service. You own a fleet of trucks and drivers as well as uniform design and fitting services. Your company delivers custom fitted uniforms to the client’s location, picks up worn uniforms for cleaning, inspection, and repair, and returns them on schedule. In this highly competitive industry, the key to survival is to exceed customer expectations. The key to
growth, on the other hand, is
innovation. Let’s use the
Subtraction tool on this service to create new opportunities.
We start by listing the internal components of the service line:
- uniforms (inventory)
- fitting service
- design service
- fabric
- trucks
- drivers
- billing
- pick-up
- delivery
- cleaning
- inspection
- repair
- tracking
- contract
- sales representative
We remove a component but keep all the others intact. Working backwards from this hypothetical solution, we consider what benefits it delivers or potential problems it solves. We try to consider possible benefits of the “virtual service” as is, without replacing the component with something else. Here are some examples:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling (1902)
Here is a simple template to create your company’s innovation strategy:
- WHAT:
- Determine what business lines are to be innovated.
- Determine what products or services within those business lines need innovation.
- Establish a portfolio model that compares innovation output from one business line to another.
- Rank order business lines based on the strength of their innovation portfolio pipelines.
- WHY:
- Determine how much innovation is needed. Use a tool like Map-the-Gap.
- Tie innovation to a strategy framework such as The Big Picture.
- Focus innovation exercises to link directly to the strategy framework.
- Use the framework to identify market adjacencies.
- WHEN:
- Schedule innovation workshops at the front end of the business cycle to help determine what projects will get funding in the next budget cycle.
- Schedule innovation workshops after the planning cycle to jump-start new initiatives for the upcoming year.
- HOW:
- Choose specific methods of innovation to be used based on efficacy and results.
- Combine different methods to leverage the strengths of each.
- Integrate the methods by using the output of one as inputs for the others.
- WHERE:
- Set aside space with the specific purpose of conducting innovation workshops.
- WHO:
- Form innovation “dream teams” to maximize the success of innovation efforts.
- Schedule training on how to use innovation methods.
- Examine the company’s innovation culture to diagnose where it is weak.
- Establish an innovation competency model.
- Designate and empower commercial leaders to drive innovation efforts.