Quinn - Innovazione - Innovation Way - 2012

The Innovation Way® laboratories for small and medium enterprises

XXIII ISPIM ConferenceBarcelona, Spain

June 19th 2012

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Index

§ Quinn: who we are?

§ SMEs – Characteristics and innovation approach

§ Innovation Way® methodology

§ Results

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Quinn – Who we are?

QUINN operates on site intervention, realises applied research projects and provides education, in the following fields:q Organizational system engineeringq Integrated management system

supporting Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSE&Q)

q Methods supporting innovation introduction and diffusion into business

q Scouting and support of new innovative businesses

q Intelligence Policiesq Efficiency and productivity analysis

www.consorzioquinn.it

Quinn is the University Consortium of Engineering for Quality and Innovation. It has beenfounded in 1989, on the initiative of the University of Pisa (Italy) and with the support of some bigcompanies. Quinn’s mission is to promote quality and innovation culture within firms and for thewhole country. Quinn's activity is focused on fields where exclusive research produced by itsscientific partners, above all College of Engineering of University of Pisa, should be appreciated.

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SMEs – Characteristics and innovation approach

q Lack of a proper marketing approach: SMEs usually work in a demand pull state, in which the customers themselves are in search for suppliers and they express explicitly their requirements.

q Lack of managerial approach: decisions are based more on intuitions than on business assessments or market researches.

q Difficulty to sustain high investments in marketing and technological researcheswith economical returns on the long term, in order to produce disruptive innovations that overturn the traditional business methods and practices.

q Adoption of Business Creativity approach: SMEs tend to produce innovations by the rearrangements of the current resources, with some incremental improvements in order to optimize needed investments and to enhance the economical benefits in the short or medium term period.

How do SMEs usually face the innovation process?

What are the characteristics of SMEs that mainly block an innovation process?

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Innovation Way® Methodology

q Setting of the development strategy of the business and consequently to break down and re-engineer the supply of goods/services;

q Aligning the vision of innovation from both technical and commercial point of view;

q Increasing the personal capacity of participants to generate innovative and effective ideas.

Innovation Way® Methodology has been proposed as a laboratory divided into four workshops. The four stages are strictly interrelated, since innovation should be managed as a process. However the four stages are not necessarily contiguous; each one can be the starting point of the process; in the process not all the steps must be necessarily performed.

The goals

What is it

The focusInnovation Way® Methodology is based on a benefit oriented approach. This focus on offered and expected benefits is due to their crucial role in defining an effective value proposition and it represents a distinctive element.

InstrumentsInnovation Way® Methodology is based on proven and well known instruments properly scaled, refocused on the characteristics of medium businesses and grouped together in a toolbox.

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Innovation Way® path

Analysis and re-definition of the business strategy

Redesign of the product or of the

services

Redesign of the offering mix on the

base of a benefit oriented approach

Analysis of the user experience and collection of the

customers feedbacks

Workshop 1 Workshop 4

Workshop 2 Workshop 3

SOURCE OF THE INPUTS: markets/customers

SOURCE OF THE INPUTS:products/services/processes

FOCUS OF THE INSTRUMENTS

On the market On the product/service

Value Curve Scenario Based Design

Morphological Analysis Creativity Templates

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WS 1 WS 2

Problem “I can’t distinguish myself in the market” “My commercial communication isn’t convincing”

Requirement To use creative abilities and techniques to product development

To make actual offer more valuable with limited investments

InstrumentValue Curve

Taken from “Blue Ocean Strategy” it frames market scene and positioning strategy of the players through competitive factors.

Morphological AnalysisIntroduced by F. Zwicky, it is applied to investigate and recombine current alternatives for the produced products and services, the customers clusters and the value proposition.

Intervention Area

Strategic PlanningRedefinition of business boundaries to draw new strategies and find out new market places

MarketingUnderstanding of the elements composing Value Proposition and redesign of the offering mix adopting a benefit oriented approach

Expected Results

New potential market targetshidden in the chain of buyers or at the edge of market sector

New offering mix focused on benefitsKey Elements for an effective commercial

communication

Innovation Way® – Workshop Contents

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WS 3 WS 4

Problem “My product isn’t attractive as it used to be” “What do customers think?”

Requirement To go from competitors crowded markets to unexplored markets

To align products and services to customers’ expectations

Instrument

Creativity TemplatesIntroduced by Goldenberg and Mazursky, they are structured methods to innovate actual products suggesting some actions to do on them, like removals…

Customer CorridorTo collect informations before, during and after

the purchase momentScenario based design

Introduced by J.M. Carroll, it allows to dive into the situation of use of actual or potential users.

Intervention Area

Product/Service developmentRedesign and development of products and services in order to add value comparing to similar offers

Customer RelationshipHearing customers’ experiences in order to understand their requirements and find out improvement opportunities

Expected Results

New products and serviceswith new functionalities

New design and new packagingto communicate the value and make the use easier

User experience scenariosto find out customers unmet needsCustomer Satisfaction Analysis

to enforce communication towards customers

Innovation Way® – Workshop Contents

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Innovation Way® – Results

The actual Innovation Way® release has been defined during 2010 and 2011 thanks to the cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Handicraft and Agriculture (CCIAA) in Grosseto, in Pisa and in Cagliari.

Innovation Way® WorkshopsNumber ofconcepts

generated

1 Analysis and re-definition of the business strategy 13

2 Redesign of the offering mix 21

3 Redesign of the product/service 17

4 Analysis of the user experience 9

Innovation Way® has been joined by 28 companies coming from

different business areas:

Companies experiencing Innovation Way® produced 60 new concepts during the different

stages of the methodology:

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Innovation Way® – Case Study

Workshop 1 Workshop 4

Workshop 2 Workshop 3

Analysis of cheese market: main competitive factors and

major players behaviors. Understanding that actual segment (expert dedicated cheeses) is a Red Ocean:

necessity to be distinctive.

Exploration of product benefits: easy to eat and

aphrodisiac. Identification of a possible market target

according to defined benefits: young trendy people. Analysis of target needs/expectations.

Assessment of product features according to their

capacity of meeting customers’ needs. Redesign of the product packaging :

from big bowls to single dose portions on sticks .

Design of a possible product scenario of use: happy hour on the beach. Validation of

proposed packaging solution and suggestion of other ideas (mixing with honey,

chilli…)

Summary of principle results achieved by a farm taking part in Innovation Way® laboratories and producing Casu Axedu, a typical Sardinian cheese