Driving Innovation

Innovation is believed to be the only competitive advantage to any business organization today.

Lets us see how,

A company launches a new product, sooner or later its competitor too comes up with same equally good product. Tata Docomo launched itself with 1paise per second calling rates and rest of the telecom operators followed suit. Thus, although novel ideas and schemes attract considerable market share and sales, they don’t remain as your company’s “differentiating factor” for a very long time.

So, here we come to the point that not all novel ideas can really be counted as ‘innovation’, especially those which can be easily copied by your competitor. An innovation is such a business model that is path-breaking, disruptive and sustainable.

The Wikipedia defines innovation as a change in the thought process for doing something. Or let us simply call it as “Out-of-Box Thinking”. Therefore innovation to an organization could mean not only new path-breaking products and advanced technology, but could also mean new processes, channels of distribution or entirely a new business model. Thus, innovation may be applied not only to any of the 4Ps or 7Ps of marketing, but also at any point of your entire customer experience with your product or service.

When we talk of innovation, first thing that clicks is Apple’s innovative range of products like first the ipod, then the iphone and now the ipad. Another common image of innovation is Mr. Ratan Tata’s Dream car “The Tata Nano”. This common man’s Rs.1 lakh wonder car was a result of new patented technology and use of new materials.

Just like the car made available to masses, it is actually possible to bring about economic and social development of the country through innovative solutions.

State Bank Of India was the first bank to reach the rural section of the poor people through innovative banking solutions provided by Tata Consultancy Services. Banking was not extended to the villages earlier because of poor infrastructure and networking problems. It could not afford netwrking costs due to low value transactions in the villages. TCS then came up with branchless banking solution with with the help of cloud computing. Instead of being connected to Core Banking software, it allowed the bankers to use a handheld electronic device to read smart cards carrying biometric information that were issued to their customers. The transaction details would be updated through web server.
It is a win-win situation for all the parties.

ITC’s E-Choupal that allows procurement of agri-products directly from farmers and online access to farmers of far-away markets, Fab India that developed communities of artisans into its supplier companies and made mass production of handicrafts possible are also examples of such innovative business models.

Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai has become a legend for its surgical productivity. The statistics regarding number of surgeries its doctors performs and the costs associated with it are simple mind-boggling. It is mix of –efficiency, quality, compassion, philosophy and family which cannot be transposed elsewhere.

Many organizations have value engineering and value analysis processes in place to increase value. After all, innovation is all about creating value through non-traditional approaches.

Innovation is receiving importance in business world today, so much so that countries have Global Innovation Index which is a measure of the level of innovation of a country, (concept produced jointly by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with some other associations).

Innovation is the main emphasis of executive managers today for they they know
“To Innovate is To Survive”

Youngistan ka “WOW”

Pepsi, the flagship brand of PepsiCo had introduced the concept of “Youngistan” a couple of years ago. Its current campaign of “Youngistan ka WOW” featuring Ranbhir Kapoor builds on the same youthful spirit. It attempts to show that youth is audacious and lets things happen in their own way.

Youth Traits are much talked about today especially in the marketing world of telecom, two-wheelers, fast moving consumer goods and lifestyle products. Men and women in the age group of 20 to 30 years is their target audience.

A brand is considered to be dying sooner or later if it cannot capture attention of the youth.
It is one such segment that is ready to experiment, try new products, take risks and also have money in their pockets along with willingness to spend.

According to National Council of Applied Economic Research (Dec 2009), 37.9 per cent of 1.2 billion Indian population falls under youth category (age group of 13 to 35) and out of them 72.8 per cent are literate. Quite interesting figures! A huge market potential!

Market research and advertising agencies are all busy these days studying the psychographic profile of this young Indian.
They believe that today’s youth are

Individulastic

Iimpatient
Networked
Novelty Seeker
Value Conscious
Realistic

A company like Bharti Airtel has assigned mentors to the senior executives of the BroadBand Services to understand what young people want and how they live. Yes, those mentors are young 25-year-old employees of Airtel itself…! The executives including the chiefs & heads spend time with their respective mentors to understand how perceptions can be mapped through blogosphere, what is F1 Racing and the networked world of youth.

A company like Levis has its marketing executives in the age group of 28 to 30 years and believes in keeping their company culture young & fresh. Recently, it tied up with banks to offer denims on installment. When Apple launched ipod, it added a slot in their denims to keep the machine.

About 80 percent of customers of Virgin Mobile are below the age of 30. Youth spend about Rs. 500 per month on mobile phones which is more than the national average. Social networking sits like Facebook & Twitter show how networked the young generation is.
Electronic media is getting more popular than the print media. Companies are releasing their ads on You Tube as soon as they are released on television.

Dabur, an FMCG brand realized, a few years ago that its market was above 50 years and that set alarm bells ringing for it. After an extensive market research, it realized that age group of 30 years is heath conscious and gets engaged with the ayurvedic and health products but find them very unimaginative and boring. It was then, that Dabur repositioned itself after giving its logo and packaging a new contemporary look and connecting with the youth. It took on board Mahendra Singh Dhoni as its brand ambassador along with Amitabh Bachchan.

Althhough celebrities like John Abrahim, Ranbhir Kapoor, Genelia D’Souza establish a strong connect with the youth, there are brands like FastTrack that have managed to strike a chord with their customers despite not using celebrities. They believe “There is also an opportunity to be a brand that can be a mentor.”

“Why Play Akele?” was another quirky, bold and on-the-face campaign by social networking site Ibibio.com to entice the youth. It believes that the young audience understands quirky and edgy, and they don’t like straight talk.

So, we find that most of the companies around are speaking the language of youth today…!
It is Youngistan ka wow!
Guys & Gals, its our time to rock the world!