Innovation for SMEs Brendan McKenna, B.Sc. (Hons), C. Eng. MIEI, WCP.

Innovation for SMEs

Brendan McKenna, B.Sc. (Hons), C. Eng. MIEI, WCP

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What is innovation?• Innovation is not the

creation of ideas– Every new idea is simply a

combination of other ideas that Someone else has thought of first

• Innovation is the commercialisation of ideas

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Two Types of Innovation

• Incremental– Continuous improvement– Must be part of the culture– Idea box, etc.– I’m not going to deal with it

• Commercialising the big idea– The subject of this

presentation

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Commercial Innovation Facts

• 10,000 business ideas -> 1,000 start ups ->100 VC funded -> 20 IPO -> 2 category leaders

• 55% of all invested money in the US is written off (62% in Europe)

• But the capital that survives has backed businesses that now account for 21% of US GDP (Apple, MS, Cisco, ….)

• Source: Saul Klein, Index Ventures, Web Summit 2013 Keynote Speech

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Radical Innovation

• Typically will take 15% of a medium company’s resources

• Will fail 80-90% of the time• But if it succeeds it will produce 40% of

your future wealth

• Source: Research done by BCG and presented at the Product Development & Management Association (pdma.org) innovation conference.

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Pivoting – Innovation for Start-Ups

• Follow the money– Sales & Cashflow are king.

• Learn the market– Try and find that lucrative niche

• Use social media– Use LinkedIn InMails when entering new

markets – Make sure you have something attractive for

your potential clients first!

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Pivoting:Case Study 1 – The Agreed Denarius

• Started Dec 2012 based on an opportunity presented by patent lawyers

• Pivoted four times since then!– Criminal prosecution– Personal Injury– Insurance Fraud– Criminal Defence

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Concept to Commercial Reality – Step 1. Innovation Drivers

• You are an established business making money and profitable

• You want to innovate because things are moving too fast in your space not to– Your business is under constant threat– You must innovate to survive

• You have ideas from in house surveys– These should be related to the existing business but to

one side of it, not completely unrelated– You need to check them out with your existing customers

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• Interview existing customers – what do they want?– One asks questions and listens, a second person writes all the notes– Summarise notes into a series of ideas– Brain storm, affinity diagram the ideas to

come up with the product/ solution/ service to create keeping in mind your in house ideas

– Define the ideas into solution statements

Concept to Commercial Reality – Step 2: Verifying Ideas

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Concept to Commercial Reality – Step 3: Funding

• Get Funding!!!• The EI series of R&D grants– Innovation vouchers– Feasibility Study Grant– R&D grant

• Treat getting funding like you would going for any business, put the effort in. Set time and staff aside for it.

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Concept to Commercial Reality -Step 4: Customer Partners

• Part of the fund raising will involve doing a detailed business plan and presentations for each new product.

• Involve your customers all the way. See if they will partner with you, become your first trial customer, add some resources.

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Concept to Commercial Reality -Step 5: The Dedicated Team

• Form a dedicated team to do the innovation projects– They have to be separate from the main business

• The main business is not and cannot be about innovation, it is only designed to do what it does efficiently not to innovate– Efficiency and innovation are mutually exclusive– The main business could be impaired by innovation

• Measure innovation progress with different metrics to those of the main business

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Concept to Commercial Reality - Step 5 (cont.)

• The innovation team can act more like a start up – it is able to pivot if necessary– An established business cannot pivot – Don’t turn the innovation team into a mini main business

• The innovation team must be able to avail of the experience and learning of the main business if it is to do something useful for it.

• The innovation team are there to make long term profits for the main business– Don’t expect anything commercial for at least 12 months– Budget accordingly

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Concept to Commercial Reality -Step 6: Execution

• Run the projects like a disciplined experiment

• Always have a crystal clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve

• Seek the truth– Expect your predictions to be wrong

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Concept to Commercial Reality -Step 7: Keeping to Budget

• Don’t do the innovation unless you can afford to lose all the money you put into it.– Same as investing in the stock market or any

other high risk venture• When your budget runs out put the

results of the innovation, including the staff, back into the main business – Don’t keep going

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Case Study 2– An Innovating SME

• Over 10 years in business in the mobile telecoms space

• 50+ employees and growing• Decent profits• Recognised the need to innovate• Hired an “innovation specialist”• Did it all right and had a usable product in less than 12

months • Made a commercial sale 12 months later after

considerable modifications and improvements in conjunction with the eventual customer

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Recommended Reading

• The Other Side of Innovation, Solving the Execution Challenge– Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble– Harvard Business Review Press– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pl1KT

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