The business environment is constantly changing and an organization that wants to stay relevant must look towards evolving its brand and the organization as a whole. It must embrace Innovation!
Innovation! The world has indeed changed and is changing. The critical success factors for businesses today have evolved to include innovation; innovation that disrupts. Organizations must be innovative not just as an entity but as a brand. They must embrace innovation as a culture and grow that culture to reflect in their offerings and their approach to business. An innovation-centric approach which is key to brand positioning efforts and more so in shaping brands as innovation firehouses with a strategic view of the future.
I have explored a number of materials on innovation, each material with its own idea of how innovation should be and how it can be re-engineered to deliver true value. But none seem to give concrete meaning on how organizations can redefine their environments through innovation. So when I stumbled on the concept of disruptive innovation I was astounded not just at the idea but at the possibility that innovation in some sense could be disruptive enough to create new markets for growth and more so redefine business landscapes. It was a concept I felt was a reflection of the new trend in business today as entrepreneurs are constantly rising with daunting innovations that are dislodging key players in already established markets and simply redefining the playing field. Companies like Apple, Starbucks, and Uber amongst others are good examples of innovation-driven to disrupt and create new markets with a totally new set of customers but most importantly a unique offering that delivers on value. But what exactly is disruptive Innovation?
Disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market-leading firms, products and alliances. The term was defined and phenomenon analyzed by Clayton M. Christensen beginning in 1995. – Wikipedia
The key phrase in the definition above is “an innovation that creates a new market”. This phrase is enough to bug our minds with questions. What kind of innovation can create new markets? To answer that I will be discussing much further on organizations I believe have engineered an innovation that has created a new market and value network.
Apple – It’s more than just a device
Apple itself is a disruption; it is a deviation from the norm, from its products to strategy, to customer experience, company leadership to the company as a whole. From the time of late Steve Jobs heading the tech giant, Apple has always disrupted the market with its products, so often wowing customers and simply pushing their expectations for more. Each year when an Apple product is released, millions rush out to get the products while they haven’t used the previous product for a quarter of its life span. This tells you a lot about Apple that so often I fancied that they defined the rate of innovation within the tech industry.
Apple itself is a disruption!
From the introduction of the first iPhone; Apple created a distinctive experience that put its products in a unique class – one where there was no competition – and over the next few years Apple would continually redefine its product experience. It was less of the product but more about the experience and prestige (in some sense) using an Apple product. It was a shift from a product centred focus to an experience-centred one such that customers didn’t just use phones or tablets it was an unexplainable experience about using one plus its ability to make communication seamless in every possible way, the security of the Apple operating platform and much more. This experience has continually pushed the bar of expectation for customers and the rate of innovation in the company and a few years down the line Apple still remains a distinctive brand and its market valuation tells the remaining story.
Starbucks – A billion Dollar Coffee Empire
I am not aware of any retail chain that simply sells coffee as its main product and even if an entrepreneur was to pitch that idea to me, I would be sceptical for a number of reasons from value proposition, to expected demand, to strategies to sustaining that demand, to the defined market size, business models, margins, offerings, etc. To me, it simply would not make business sense to simply just sell coffee. But all my apprehension have been swept away on learning about Starbucks.
“We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee.” – Howard Schultz, Founder and CEO of Starbucks
I learnt about Starbucks from a friend who was trying to pitch an idea of a coffee stand to me. Well am not a coffee lover but I found his idea rather daring given the market he was talking about; Nigeria. When he ended his pitch I took out time to google Starbucks and my first stop was the company’s market capitalization; $86.44 billion! I was simply short of words. How does an organization grow into a billion-dollar empire selling coffee? Coffee! Well, I believe if the business model was right coupled with a strong corporate culture it could indeed make returns off this product. But still it was amazing to see an organization grow on that product line. And so I asked myself, what made Starbucks different from every restaurant and coffee stand that sold coffee. Well, they all sold coffee; the common denominator and I did fancy some had better recipes. But Starbucks wasn’t just a coffee company, it was a company that offered a quality product, a unique experience and it cemented that with its brand name such that whether the coffee tasted great or not there was a feeling you got by simply going to Starbucks and getting a coffee. That in some sense was disruption, disruption in the way things were done and this disruption has created a totally new market of coffee lovers and a premium value network.
Noisemakerz – Re-branding the Art of Advertising
Am not a big fan of clichés, they rob the depth out of words but this cliché still holds depth and it is that the world is a global village. The world has indeed changed and technology and all its inclusion have changed the way businesses operate and how they interact with their customers. Today, technology is the major driver and social media, the key component through which businesses create better brand awareness to aid customer translation efforts and more so to increase customer patronage. Thus, advertising isn’t just a need, it is a necessity and this is where Noisemakerz comes in.
Its all about getting the right social media noise out there
Noisemakerz; an odd name for a platform, one which brings memories of my high school days whereas the class captain I took the names of noisemakers in my class. But the name alone gets you curious and so who or what is Noisemakerz? Noisemakerz is Nigeria\’s first influencer management platform that gives businesses an alternative to the conventional ways of advertising. The platform leverages on social media to grow, improve and sustain brand image and awareness through the help of influencers and their networks (followers) who create or repost brand-sponsored content and actions for compensation. The influencers are drivers and a quote from the website defines them as:
“Someone who writes or creates social media contents that relate and connects with his audience/followers interests, bringing them to their social media space. “
The influencers using their content go on to engage their followers who are searching for inspiration, instruction, entertainment, or advice and this creates ripple effects of impact as the word is spread and the message is preached. Noisemakerz provides a unique opportunity, one wherein organizations leverage the power of social media to influence perception and engage their customers and more so draw in new customers. An interesting concept, platform and a really smart business idea given that social media has revolutionized communication. It’s no longer just the new media but the tool to grow businesses and increase reach. It is the new frontier for advertising!
Personally, I find Noisemakerz to be a differentiated offering as the business creators took the idea of noise makers – individuals who refuted conventions and stood out with their act of noise making – and turned it into a business that was all about around getting the right social media noise for businesses. Simply brilliant I must say! The business creators were able to take advertising and with innovation created a new playing field wherein the possibility was endless. Noisemakerz is simply an innovative marvel and one that is simply redefining the advertising landscape.
MTN Yellow Box – Electricity meets innovation
Behold the Power in a box
The key to the continuous growth of any organization is for it to continually innovate, to continually push the bar of what is possible and continuously redefine expectation. The moment an organization loses sight of how important it is to continuously innovate it becomes stuck. This is often the challenge for organizations who have reached maturity and who have now become stuck with the “Too big to innovate” mentality. And if you compare results with organizations who innovate the difference is so often clear. A good insight would be the performance of the Big 4 in the banking industry.
MTN rose up from the NCC fine and not only re-organized its leadership team but also re-orientated its approach to a business trying to maintain its customer base, it\’s market leadership and also growing its revenue. In a way, I personally believed that whatever decisions the company took would not only define their path moving forward but also their brand. And I believe they made a wise decision partnering with Lumos to provide what seems like a revolutionary product within the Nigerian market space – the MTN Yellow Box. A creative partnership that not only expands their revenue streams, but that puts the brand on a level that no other Telecommunication giant in Nigeria has attained and reinvigorates their brand as a value-adding entity who has an innovative view of the future.
Without a doubt, the need for constant power supply is not just a big issue in Nigeria it has become somewhat a necessity in the daily lives of the average Nigerian. While generators have taken over the day, the need for sustainable, efficient and cleaner energy has seen a wave in solar power as a reliable alternative. Solar is the new Nigerian generator of some sorts and MTN is championing that cause with its new affordable solar energy. Indeed MTN is living its slogan “everywhere you go” because the Yellow Box is living up to that expectation.
The Yellow Box is truly a revolutionary product that blends electricity with innovation and a subscription payment system. It is a mobile solar electricity unit that provides 24/7 electricity at an affordable price. It combines the billing system of the telecommunication giant (Pay as you go) with an innovative invention by Lumos. The system provides safe, fumeless power with a 5-year warranty. Furthermore, it takes away the expensive cost of solar power units as customers need only pay the initial set-up cost of N26, 000 with a minimum of 20 days subscription coupled with a usage term which can be combined from a list of payment plans. This is truly forward-thinking as MTN not only re-establishes its position in the telecommunication industry as the market leader but also as a solution provider to a key problem in its business environment.
ALAT – Banking Redefined
Having worked in a bank for a couple of years I can tell you most confidently that there is simply an absence of an innovation culture in most institutions in the industry. Many simply prefer to stick to the status quos with a strict focus on making profit continually draining over-aged strategies which are in dire need of change. While there is always a big resistant to change and so often you see old ideas recycled over and over or ideas copied without a firm understanding of its dynamics. Regardless a few players in the industry have built a reputation for forward-thinking with banks like GTB known for providing platforms for their customer’s business growth and Fidelity Bank providing strong support for SME’s. That said, I am always curious what other defining initiatives other players in the industry are willing to offer. And here Wema Bank provides what I call a brilliant idea wrapped in an innovative offering.
Innovation is not just about creating new products or offering new services it is also about the customer experience .
Of all the business I have written about above, this gets me wowed. Innovation is the new business currency. Organizations must unlearn old practices and learn new ways and means of getting things done. They must in every sense of the word embrace innovation and evolve not just their offerings but their brand and create a new image that reflects newness, innovation, creativity and much more. Wema Bank has climbed on to this new field and is simply redefining its image as a bank with an understanding of what innovation truly is.
ALAT! Sounds like alert and that’s enough to make your curious what it’s all about. ALAT is Nigeria’s first fully functional digital bank making all banking services available online without physical interface with a bank branch. It offers a truly digital experience built on an app platform (available on Google Playstore and Apple App store) that doesn’t just offer some banking services common with many bank apps, it offers much more from account opening (which is done with your BVN and phone number in less than 5 minutes), to submitting of account opening documents to requesting a free delivery of debit cards you can activate on your own, to automating savings, to scheduled bill payments to requesting for account statements, to locking and unlocking your phones anywhere in Nigeria, to basic customer service and much more.
Wema is simply creating a new banking experience for customers and creating a unique channel to drive a retail strategy as against conventional process of sending marketers who seem more interested in corporate clients with better margin addition to the bottom line. Further, it shows that the bank is embracing an innovation culture as they put to creative use the BVN initiative which provides a unique opportunity to tackle the issue of fraud within the industry and also a platform to develop products that are innovative and revolutionary.
This is truly a revolutionary product and simply recreates a new playing field in the market and one must hope it can be sustained.
To be continued…
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