Enterprise surveys by respected organisations equivalent to IBM, Boston Consulting Group, PwC and others inevitably come to the identical conclusion that innovation is vital for enterprise development and earnings. But, solely 4% of CEOs have really put in place a system of innovation for his or her organisation. They’re hesitant to embrace innovation out of failure and uncertainty.
In IBM’s final three world CEOs research, CEOs constantly mentioned that dealing with change was their most urgent problem. Within the IBM CEO Research 2010, CEOs pronounced Creativity as an important management attribute. Probably the most artistic enterprise leaders have a system of innovation. Nevertheless, innovation carries excessive danger and ties up the corporate’s sources like cash, time, logistics and presumably costly equipments.
These CEOs are continuously searching for a much less dangerous manner. Now, the look is over. The answer is Copycat Innovation.
What’s Copycat Innovation?
Copycat Innovation is about adapting a confirmed answer to return out with an innovation, thereby minimizing danger and optimizing success. In brief, it’s about taking what works greatest and enhancing on it.
Copycat Innovation isn’t a few full-scale imitation of an present product, service or course of. Creativity and innovation are required. It has a structured methodology.
Copycat Innovation doesn’t problem copyright. Nor does it contain patent infringement. Copycat Innovation takes benefit of R&D carried out earlier and includes the borrowing and creating of present merchandise, companies, advertising methods and applied sciences to carve a aggressive area of interest within the market.
By making use of a 7-step Copycat Innovation course of, you can eradicate the fears and frustrations of that minimises danger and optimises success by making what works properly even higher.
Why Copycat Innovation?
Popping out with ‘breakthrough concepts’ and ‘utterly new’ improvements is each tempting and glamorous. In any case, success might imply market domination. Nevertheless, such a technique carries massive dangers. Furthermore it normally calls for huge efforts and sources. It’s an exercise that’s complicated, expensive, and very often reveals little or no promise of a return on funding. Work on the successor of the profitable product has to begin instantly. Because of this the successive analysis finances have to be more and more greater than the unique innovation. Examples of this method are Intel, 3M and P&G.
With globalisation and the arrival of the Web, there’s a neater, less complicated and confirmed new path to minimising danger and optimising success. This path is termed “Copycat Innovation”. Examples of this method are Apple in creating the iPod, iPhone and iPad collection of merchandise, Samsung’s enterprise technique and banking.
The very fact is that this method isn’t new. It has been carried out by numerous profitable corporations and organisations. However nobody had given it a generic identify till now. After doing intensive analysis, I named this method Copycat Innovation and have developed a 7-step methodology for Copycat Innovation, a strategy that faucets into the superior energy of the International Mind by way of the Web.
In brief, Copycat Innovation provides in all probability one of the best method to your organisation in sustaining and rising your competitiveness and strategic positioning within the market-place as a result of it’s:
* Easy to implement
* Low danger, as you might be adapting or refining a confirmed answer
* Low-cost, because the analysis and improvement work has already been achieved for you
* Requires a lot much less sources together with folks, time,cash and efforts
* A quick-track path to commercialisation
* It’s authorized and moral
Examples of Copycat Innovation
* Apple: Apple launched the iPad in 2010 by refining and adapting applied sciences from many sources. For instance, the primary Pill laptop was constructed by Microsoft in 2001. MIT created the Contact Display screen applied sciences and the hand movement methods for flipping pages or shifting screens. In fact, Apple introduces many inventions to the iPad too.
* Samsung: Samsung founder Lee Kun-hee’s method of being the primary out there with a copycat product when there is a new alternative has helped flip Samsung right into a prime world model over the previous decade or so, boasting a market worth of $143 billion, larger than Intel and Hewlett Packard and equal to the mixed worth of Sony Corp, Nokia, Toshiba and Panasonic Corp. It is because being an authentic innovator and creating a brand new market requires a lot of danger and takes a very long time to attain worthwhile outcomes.
* Franchising: Franchising is a scientific type of Copycat Innovation. In response to the USA Chamber of Commerce statistics, franchised companies have a 97% success charge inside 5 years of opening, whereas non-franchised companies have a, comparatively low, success charge of 48% of their first 6 years.
* McDonalds: White Fort’s founders, Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram, are broadly credited with inventing each the hamburger and the fast-food enterprise. Nevertheless, its copycat follower McDonalds, the world’s largest fast-food chain, by way of its advertising innovation makes a a lot higher success of its hamburger fast-food enterprise.
The 7-Step Methodology to Copycat Innovation
The 7-step course of for Copycat Innovation that delivers a measurable results-driven (KPIs) fast-track innovation by tapping into the superior energy of the worldwide mind is as under:
1. Figuring out the Core difficulty;
2. Taking the Michelangelo method;
3. Making one of the best higher;
4. Innovating the wheel;
5. Promoting the Copycat Innovation;
6. Implementing the Copycat Innovation;
7. Recognition and Celebration.
Conclusion
Fastcompany and Businessweek journal have acknowledged Apple as essentially the most revolutionary firm on this planet. Additionally it is in all probability the world’s most proficient copycatter. Steve Jobs, Apple founder and CEO brazenly admitted as such throughout one in every of his shows. He mentioned, “Good artists copy, nice artists steal. And we’ve got at all times been shameless about stealing nice concepts.”
In his a lot reviewed new e-book, “Copycats: How Good Corporations Use Imitation to Achieve a Strategic Edge “printed by the Harvard Enterprise Publishing, Prof Oded Shenkar cited a examine over a interval from 1948 to 2001 which discovered that 97.8% of innovation worth goes to the imitators! He calls it imovation (Imitation+innovation) which is strictly what Copycat Innovation is all about.
