From mind to market
This image is from Guido Daniele's Web site. His hand paintings are incredible.
Blogs on innovation tend to focus on the thinking stages (ideas) of the innovation process while others (fewer?) concentrate on the doing (implementation) stages. I've always found that the doing stage is the hard part: it requires getting out there into the trenches; making things happen; giving demonstrations; making calls; listening to what people are saying; setting up displays; getting your product on the shelves and many other not-so-glamourous tasks. Regardless of whether you're a foreign company flogging your product offerings to India or China, or an Asian company trying to enter the European or North American markets, the "last mile" is likely to be the hardest part. When you hear that it's "tough doing business in China," what this really means is that you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and get out there into the trenches. This requires a lot of stamina and commitment and, yes, it is a jungle out there.
Blogs on innovation tend to focus on the thinking stages (ideas) of the innovation process while others (fewer?) concentrate on the doing (implementation) stages. I've always found that the doing stage is the hard part: it requires getting out there into the trenches; making things happen; giving demonstrations; making calls; listening to what people are saying; setting up displays; getting your product on the shelves and many other not-so-glamourous tasks. Regardless of whether you're a foreign company flogging your product offerings to India or China, or an Asian company trying to enter the European or North American markets, the "last mile" is likely to be the hardest part. When you hear that it's "tough doing business in China," what this really means is that you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and get out there into the trenches. This requires a lot of stamina and commitment and, yes, it is a jungle out there.
Labels: innovation
posted by Gordon Graham at 9:22 PM
3 Comments:
Excellent post. I agree: it's one thing to have ideas, it's quite another to get them into action and make them a reality. People who do both are the innovators.
100% true. Actually, getting structured processes to implement innovation is quite a tough task, that is what most consulting firms are trying to do, and I think sooner or later something like six sigma for innovation will appear
Thanks for the comments Roger and Daniel. I recently asked a guy who works for Nike here in Taipei, Taiwan how many foreigners ("weiguoren") worked in his office. Answer: just one!
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