CMIE6213 PRODUCT INNOVATION AND

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

W E E K 2 : I D E A G E N E R AT I O N &
ENTREPRENEURS

Dr Nizaroyani Saibani
Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering
Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment
Being an ‘entrepreneur’
en•tre•pre•neur [fr. Old French entreprendre to
undertake]
1. the organizer of an economic venture: one who
organizes, owns, manages, and assumes the risks of a
business
2. one that organizes, promotes, or manages an enterprise
or activity of any kind: PRACTITIONER, PROMOTER
3. one who serves as an intermediary: MIDDLEMAN, GO-
BETWEEN
Being an ‘innovator’
in•no•va•tion [fr. Latin innovatus/innovare, renew, modify]
1. the act or an instance of introducing something new
2. deviation from established doctrine or practice
3. a shoot that arises at or near the apex of the stem of a
plant
Some common typologies of
technological innovation

Product vs. Process

Radical vs. Incremental

Technology-Push vs. Demand-Pull

Traits of the innovative entrepreneur
1. Active desire to change the status quo
2. Willing to take risks to make such change happen.
3. Combine persistence in strategy with flexibility in
tactics
4. Treats failure with respect and uses it as an opportunity
to learn and try something new:
 mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of
 they are expected as a cost of doing business
 if no mistakes, not trying hard enough

Adapted from Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
“On A Mission
for Change”

 “Embracing a mission for change makes it much easier to

take risks and make mistakes”

 Innovators rely on their “courage to innovate”

 active bias against the status quo
 unflinching willingness to take risks
…to “transform ideas into powerful impact.”

Adapted from Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
The innovation skill set
1. Associating
2. Questioning
3. Observing
4. Experimenting
5. Networking

From Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
1. Associating
 “the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated
questions, problems, or ideas from different fields”

 “Creativity is connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

 Pierre Omidyar launched eBay in 1996 after linking three

unconnected dots:
1. a fascination with creating more efficient markets
2. his fiancée’s desire to locate hard-to-find collectible Pez
dispensers
3. the ineffectiveness of local classified ads to find such things”

From Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
1. Associating
 “Thinking of poor people as customers instead of recipients of
charity radically changes the design process.”
-Paul Polak, Out of Poverty, pg 75
2. Questioning
 “The important and difficult job is never to find the right
answers, it is to find the right question.”
-Peter Drucker

 “question the unquestionable.”

-Ratan Tata

Adapted from Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
2. Questioning

 “…simple but critical high-leverage interventions can generate

significant positive impacts on multiple fronts.”

 “many leaders in development continue to scorn the search for

relatively simple, low-cost, high-leverage solutions to the complex
problem of poverty.”

 “I have no doubt that the most important low-cost, high-leverage

solution to the complex issue of poverty is helping poor people
increase their income.”

-Paul Polak, Out of Poverty, pg 55

2. Questioning

 “Where will the money be?”

 [i.e. not “Where is it now?”]

-Paul Pollak, Out of Poverty, pg 80

3. Observing
 “Often the surprises that lead to new business ideas come
from watching other people work and live their normal lives.”

-Scott Cook,
creator of Quicken financial software

 Toyota’s philosophy of genchi genbutsu:

“going to the spot and seeing for yourself.”

From Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
3. Observing
 Four of Paul Polak’s ‘Twelve Steps to Practical Problem
Solving”:
1. Go to where the action is.
2. Talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they say.
3. Learn everything you can about the problem’s specific context.
6. See and do the obvious

“Each of the last twenty-five years I have interviewed at least a

hundred of IDE’s small-acreage customers. All my ideas…came
from what I learned from these small-acreage farmers…”
-Paul Polak, Out of Poverty, pg. 23
4. Experimenting
 “I haven’t failed. I’ve simply found 10,000 ways that do not
work.” -Thomas Edison

 “Like scientists, innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new

ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.”

 One of the most powerful experiments in which

innovators can engage is living and working overseas
 “research has revealed that the more countries a person has
lived in, the more likely he or she is to leverage that experience
to deliver innovative products, processes, or businesses.”

From Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
4. Experimenting
 Paul Polak’s design principles:
 MAKE A MULTITUDE OF PROTOTYPES
“using local rural workshops to produce prototypes is an advantage
because they incorporate solutions to constraints”
 MAKE CHANGES BASED ON FIELD TESTS
“Immediately try the new technology in at least 25 farms with
different conditions”
 ADAPT A TECHNOLOGY IF YOU MOVE IT
“why would anyone consider exporting [technology] without first
going through the relatively inexpensive process of field-testing and
adaptation based on experience.”
-Paul Pollak, Out of Poverty, pg 79-80
5. Networking
 “Finding and testing ideas through a network of diverse
individuals gives innovators a radically different perspective”

 “Innovative entrepreneurs go out of their way to meet people

with different kinds of ideas and perspectives to extend their
own knowledge domains”

From Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” Harvard Business Review, 2009
Networking is the Idea
 Andrew Hargadon argues that innovation is more a process of
“recombination” of existing things than inventing new ones:
 ideas,
 physical technologies,
 people, companies, & relationships,
 systems
 Even apparently radical innovations, like the invention of the
light bulb, are in themselves rather more incremental when you
carefully examine the context of the “network” within which
they occurred.
 The radical change arises, rather, in how the system around the
so-called breakthrough gets rearranged.
 This cannot happen without the innovative entrepreneur being
thoroughly engaged with that network.

Andrew Hargadon, How Breakthroughs Happen, Harvard Business School Press: 2003
Idea Generation
Idea

 Plato: an archetype or subsistent form

 Aristotle: a form-giving cause
 Locke: an immediate object [of the mind] or compound of
immediate objects
 Hume: a representation or construct of memory and
association
 Kant: a transcendent but non-empirical concept of reason
 Hegel: the complete and final product of reason

 The raw materials of innovation

Idea generation

IDEAS

INNOVATIONS
If an ‘innovation’, as a new way of doing things, is a potentially
workable solution to a problem (step 3)….

…an ‘idea’ is a hypothesis about how to solve the problem; or

even simply a way to generate hypotheses about how to solve
the problem (step 2).

Yet prior even to the idea, there must be a questioning, a

conceptualization and formulation of the ‘problem’…
even a realization, simply, that the problem exists (step 1).
Step 1. Problem Identification
 What is a problem that, if alleviated, would have major
impact for humanity?

“An important question is always interesting,

but an ‘interesting’ question is not always important.”
- Bryan Willson
Problem Identification
 Dean Kamen:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_previews_a_new_p
rosthetic_arm.html
this is very inspiring video!

Marc Koska, 1.3 million reasons to re-invent the syringe:

http://www.ted.com/talks/marc_koska_the_devastating_toll
_of_syringe_reuse.html
…opportunity recognition.
2. Idea Generation
 What are all the possible ways we could approach solving
the identified problem?
3. Innovation
 Of the most promising ways to approach the problem, do
we have—or could we create—a potentially workable
solution?
Locating Business Ideas
COMMON SOURCES OF
BUSINESS

 Personal Experiences
 Personal Hobby / Interest
 Serendipity
 Federal Government
 Interview Successful Entrepreneurs
 Visiting Trade / Business Exhibitions /
Expo
 Consumers
 Distribution Channels
 Social Networks
Personal Personal
Hobby / Experiences
Interest

Serendipity
 Interview
Successful
Entrepreneur

Federal
Government
 Visiting Trade /
Business
Exhibitions / Expo

Consumer
 Distribution
Channels

Social
Network
INNOVATIVE THINKING TO GENERATE
BUSINESS IDEAS

 Combine two businesses (or more)

into one to create new business

 Recognise a hot trend and determine

current demand
 Improve products, their functions, or
offer new benefits

 Recognise a need in the marketplace

that is not being served
 Begin with a problem in mind
Combine two
businesses

Recognise hot
trend and
determine current
demand
 Improve products,
functions, offer
new benefits

Recognise
a need in
the Market
Begin with a
problem in
mind
TECHNIQUES TO ASSESS NEW
BUSINESS IDEAS
 Inside out
 List all of the assumptions about a
product or business and then vary them
 Identifyingnew raw materials or
formulating new methods of production
 Improve an existing product by
increasing the level of products
 Developing new ways of organising
processes
 Be aware of everything and be open to
new ideas
 Scientific research and development
Possible Assumptions
Assumptions Type of Product or New Assumptions
Business –
Restaurant
New logo according to new trends
Logo Not important and not
attractive
Time Open 8.00 am – 11.00pm 7.00am – 1.00 pm
Painting Not attractive Make it attractive
Layout Grid layout Free flow layout
Chair Ordinary chairs Unique chairs, multiple types
Table Standard table Customised table
Malaysian drinks, Western
Drink Local drinks drinks and herbal drinks
Malaysian food, Indonesian
Main course Malaysian foods food and Western food
Target market Young people, All ethnics, Major market
teenagers segments, Love to hang out
 Identifying new
materials/methods/
production

Core
Generic
Expected
Augmented
Potential
Improves existing
product by level of
products
Developing new ways
of organising
processes

Be aware of
everything
and be
open to new
ideas
 Scientific
Research and
Development
TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING NEW
BUSINESS IDEAS

 Brainstorming
 Reverse Brainstorming
 Focus Groups
 Brainwriting
 Library Research
 Internet Research
 Big-dream Approach
 Brainstorming
- A process for development of ideas through freewheeling group discussions.

 Reverse Brainstorming
- A tool that solves problems by exploring several factors in reverse.

 Focus Groups
- A group of individuals assembled to participate in a discussion to provide
feedback about a service, product, advertisement, political campaign etc.
 Brainwriting
- A technique to generate ideas where during the process of idea generation,
individuals will record their ideas and pass them to the next person who will
use them as a trigger for their own ideas.

 Library Research
- To do many reading on the creativity of entrepreneurs, various business ideas
and opportunities in business magazines and others periodicals.
 Internet Research
- Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing will provide millions of
data, facts and information within a second.

 Big-dream Approach
- New ideas are required and the entrepreneur should dream about the
problems and its solution.
 The Paradoxes of Enterprise

On The One Hand

• Enterprise Requires On The Other
Thought & Preparation • It Is An Unplanned Event
• To Make Money • You Have To Loose Money
• An Opportunity with Little • Can Be An Enormous
or No Potential Opportunity
• To Create & Build Wealth • You Must First Relinquish Wealth
• To Succeed • You Must Experience Failure

Enterprise and its Business Environment

© Goodfellow Publishers 2016