World Monitor Mag, Industrial Overview WM_November_2018_WEB_Version | Page 97

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and client insights as the most important capability during the
ideation stage. However, interestingly, respondents who reported
revenue growth that was the same as or slower than that of
their peers believe they are most competent in this capability,
whereas those who reported faster revenue growth ranked it as
a capability in which they have the second-most competence.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but actually makes a good deal
of sense. Those who reported slow or similar growth compared
with their peers’ growth seem to think that they have done
enough in this area. Those who reported fast growth see further
opportunities for improvement.
Decker is a case in point.
“The executive team is involved in innovation right from the
top,” says Tim Hatch, chief technology officer at Stanley
Engineered Fastening. “Our CEO mentions breakthrough
innovation whenever I hear him speak in a group. Whenever we
have project reviews or product reviews, he is always asking
questions around where we are with breakthroughs and how we
are commercializing the ideas that have been generated by the
teams. And as you go down from his level to the business unit
level, there are similar levels of engagement.”
At Apple, innovation has always been a top executive-team
agenda item. It helps to start with a visionary founder (the
late Steve Jobs), but Apple has also elevated innovation — and
specifically, design — within the organization. JonyIve, for
example, who has run Apple’s design studio since 1996, was
named chief design officer in 2015. He reports directly to the
CEO, and his responsibilities include the look and feel of Apple
hardware, user interface, packaging, and major architectural
projects such as Apple Park and Apple’s retail stores, as well as
new ideas and future initiatives.
Focus on customer insights. All of our survey respondents —
those who reported their growth as faster, slower, or the same
as that of their peers — value deep customer and consumer
insights in their innovation programs. They ranked consumer
Looking at the innovation models, need seekers — which rely
heavily on customer insights — also chose customer insights
as their second-best competency. But market readers and
tech drivers chose it as their top competency. Overall, the top
innovators seem to recognize that when it comes to gathering
customer insights, no company is ever done learning.
DIC has focused on gaining direct customer insights into some
of its most successful innovations. One of the company’s main
businesses is producing components and materials for the color
filters of liquid crystal displays used in TVs, computers, and other
devices — especially the red, blue, and green pigments they
utilize. Technology in this field has advanced rapidly over the
last 10 years, according to R&D general manager Kawashima,
and typically a long supply chain distances the end-users from
the process and materials providers such as DIC. The innovation
team sought end-user feedback at a very early stage of
development for its latest color filter innovations, and was able
to incorporate the insights and utilize its production know-how
to create pigments superior to its competitors’ offerings. Today,
DIC’s market share for green pigment is 80 percent, and it is 50
percent for blue.
Direct end-user input played a major role in the turnaround of
Adidas that began in the 1990s (see “How Adidas Found Its
Second Wind,” s+b, Aug. 24, 2015). A new management team
set out to recapture the innovation mojo that had characterized
the athletic footwear company during the leadership of the
founder, AdiDassler, who died in 1978. Dassler had started the
company with a simple approach: He observed athletes, talked
to them about their needs, and then experimented with novel
ways of solving their problems. The new team renewed Dassler’s
approach, focused on performance-related design and industrial
craftsmanship, and rebuilt Adidas’s product line.
Adidas is now focusing on open source innovation and co-
creation with customers to develop new ideas. Says CEO
Kasper Rørsted: “We look at all kinds of collaborative creation
as valuable — not only within our company, but with external
partners as well. We are clear about the borders of our brand,
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