Most of us have been taken by surprise at the speed and depth of the current downturn. The sudden collapse of the normally reliable banking sector has compounded the difficult situation, as struggling companies feel an additional lending squeeze.
From the boardroom down through the business managers, management teams are scrambling to find ways to get through this tough cycle. It is important to remember that this is a cycle and the majority will come through it ready for a steady upturn in the next decade.
So what can management do now to take to be strong and ready to take advantage of the upturn?
Certainly all the trends point a next decade of accelerating innovation. Global energy resource depletion and higher consumption will spur new, sustainable energy solutions for our homes, businesses, for industry and for the automobile.I.T. and the Internet will develop at breathtaking speed as new, open business models and crowdsourcing are leveraged to channel the ideas and skills of the masses. The growth in new consumers from developing nations will spur disruptive innovations that deliver the solutions they desire at a price they can afford.
So how can management continue to prepare for the next decades opportunities in today's climate of reduced R&D and development budgets?
The point is not to panic and not to batten down the hatches until the storm passes. It is a time for cool heads and smart decision-making. Make the very best of your hard earned customer networks, your skills and resources and your ideas and development portfolios. Here are a few tips to innovating during the down cycle:
1. Spend more time with your customers and their customers too. Have a review of current portfolios and see if there are opportunities for substitutions that might bring extra value to both parties - particularly if your product or service over serves the customer. In addition, discuss how you can partner to eliminate current costs by optimizing the job your customer is hiring your product to do.
2. Use Job Mapping across the whole supply chain to discover insights into underserved needs. Look at adjacent jobs too. These can lead to valuable innovations
3. In parallel, review your current idea pipeline and innovation portfolio. Align it to the companies strategy, kill low value, non-strategic and nice-to-do projects and use these resources to focus on fast implementation of critical, high value innovations that your customers will buy now and early in the next cycle.
Further, there could be a case to slow down some of the longest-term, highest risk projects to allow for any fundamental changes and new (disruptive) technologies spawned from the recession. Again, these extra resources are available for shorter term, more certain projects.
4. With resources at a premium, use the talents of relatively low cost external experts in portfolio management, growth and innovation as a temporary means to strengthen your team coach and train teams. This will accelerate your innovation initiatives in order to quickly realize revenues and capture the long-term commercial benefits
Kevin Weir 2nd Jan 2009
