What happens when stakeholder requirements are ignored by big companies already known for its innovation?
Just being good at the moment is not enough to stay on top of an industry. New ideas must continue to be sought out and implemented. To not be implemented or not implemented fully is innovation idea folly!
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Let us look at the cellular phone industry. Motorola was initially an industry leader and dominated the market. Then Nokia took over industry leadership. Blackberry came by and blew away the narrow-minded efforts of Nokia. But then Apple virtually bankrupted Nokia. Now Samsung’s Galaxy is giving Apple a stiff run for its money as it gives end-user stakeholders (SH) many new delightful and frustration reducing features.
How is Samsung achieving impact? By putting out a new size of device that is bigger than a cell phone but smaller than a tablet. The tablet is just too big to carry around most of the time while the phone is too small to be able to work on like a computer (although smart phone users do it albeit in a somewhat frustrating way). Apple’s policy of not going to that type of an intermediate size is hurting them.
How did Apple grab Blackberry’s market? The SH had an initial need for security of intra-corporate communication but Apple is able to provide that kind of security and yet do so much more. Blackberry concentrated on incremental improvements to its product instead of seeing the grand picture of what was possible to do with the communication device such as turning it into a computer now known as a smart phone. The ability to carry around a computer in a very portable and easy fashion without aggravation removed a deep-seated frustration for the general public and far exceeded the simpler desires of a very narrow business market.
Similarly, Nokia took advantage of Motorola’s very narrow focus on its current economic/performance engine while it’s inability to make radical or disruptive change was ignored. Nokia moved out into a new S-curve, a new performance engine: a small and sleek highly comfortable device replacing a big and bulky monstrosity-to-use cell phone even though those same cell phones were becoming incrementally smaller.
When stakeholders’ deep-seated frustrations are ignored somebody will fill the gap with a frustration-reduction solution. When the SH requirement or need is critically important to what they commonly do, then the rate of acceptance of a frustration-reduction device will be exceedingly rapid and produce huge new markets. Detecting both critically important SH activity that is being met with a matching deep frustration is the basis for radical or disruptive innovation. When such detection techniques are repeatedly used then a world-class innovation company will come on the scene and become exceedingly difficult to displace or compete against – – they become a stakeholder’s dream company.
So who seeks to intimately know the critical frustrations of a company’s many stakeholders?
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