Strategy

Your idea generation strategy

Your business was initially an idea. Your idea may be as complex or as simple as your creativity. You can either take an existing product and better it. The Japanese were great at it. Their cars are better than the American ones. Or you can be a first mover. You have a great idea. Get to the market before anyone else does. IBM was there once. They were the people in blue; the IBM PC.

Whatever your idea, your business is set up around that idea. You hire people who buy into that idea. You develop assets as you become successful. Your idea gets reinforced with every success your business achieves. Typically, companies evolve themselves as the market forces change. Intel was a memory company once upon a time. Microprocessors was only a fraction of their business. Today we identify Intel as a microprocessor company. Volvo decided to focus on safety. And it became the most successful brand in the automobile industry. They commanded a huge premium when they were bought out by Ford.

Ideas need creativity. Creativity can take you places. Your creativity got you started; creativity of your employees propelled your business growth. It helped extend your product and/or service line or diversify into totally unrelated business. You can do that too: diversify!

One of the most successful conglomerates is Virgin - from wireless communication to air travel. General Electric is another organization that come to mind.

We move in cycles in the business world. There was a time when it was believed that you could transfer management skills to any industry. Organizations were looking for growth in unrelated industries. Their rationale was to diversify their business portfolio. It minimized risk, they said. But very few organizations have been able to do that. Now we are back to focusing on core competencies. Having said that, M&A’s are picking up this year.

It is all about creating value to customers. Organizations use their assets to create value. Strategy, marketing, operations, finance and HR functions all use their creativity to add value. We are all creative thinkers in some form or the other.

The mind is a wonderful tool. We develop perceptions based on what we know. However, very few amongst us question “the way of doing things”. How often in your career have you heard “This is how we do things around here”. Yes, the mind is a wonderful tool. But strangely, we rarely push it out of our comfort zone. And it rusts from lack of use. If we do not open our minds to new information, the mind only sees what we want to see.

Can you relate to this scenario: You are pouring over the data to see if you can glean new information from, say, your market research. But you cannot come up with new ideas. When stuck with a problem, do you find it helpful to leave it for a while and come back to it later? Yes? This just proves my point, to see new ideas you have to first open your mind. Getting away allows your mind to relax and this makes it open to new possibilities.

Outsource your idea generation. Does it not make sense? You can generate many ideas in-house, but are they good? Quality matters. Do you bounce ideas off a friend, or your manager or your peers? That’s outsourcing.

A third person can develop creative ideas. This person is not carrying any organizational baggage. As an employee of the organization, you are. This third person can bring in fresh insights. Do you develop your advertising campaign in-house? It is a creative exercise; and so is generating ideas for your business.

Your strategy implementation needs ideas!

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