Crossroad Innovation

Many times my thought process goes in why majority of the companies’ life span significantly lesser than human beings. What made companies like “Stora” a company in Sweden, which was founded in twelfth century, still exist as 700 plus years young innovative company. They started with a timber cutting and processing business but is still a successful living company in various areas of food processing and electronics industry.

There are numerous companies, with number of stories we come across the globe, that evolve with zoom and enter into gloom quite early. Only successful companies manage the brightness of their business in contrast to fast changing businesses. What we manufacture today may not be our future business, but how the learning in the industry is utilized in other area of the business is all about Crossroad Innovation. This does not guarantee the success; the learning may lay the foundation for preparedness to meet the future risk.

It you look at Nokia’s story of a meek timber products company and a conglomerate, from rubber boots to toilet paper. Here again the history repeats as it happened in the case of “Stora”. Now Nokia is into consumer electronics and holds a niche market in mobile phone business. If you analyze their Numero-Uno status, it boils down to Innovation and understanding their customer’s requirements.

Meeting at the intersection with different industry, brings in lot of new knowledge into our domain. This is termed as “Next Mark” which goes beyond the benchmark in your own domain. Many corporations fail due to very reason that they don’t see or recognize the need to change, focusing more inward than outward, and full of activity like fighting fires, dealing with and concerned about today’s catastrophe and emerging storm on the horizon. If we are internally focused on process we may miss out to identify the caution signals from the other industry. For instance, harvesting and distribution of Ice was in boom in late 19th Century. In 1870’s there were around 14 firms in Boston area of USA that were cutting around 700,000 tons per year. Several thousand people were employed. The entire industry was thrown out by a single invention of refrigeration and the growth of modern cold storage industry. Looking at the “Century Club” companies like 3M, P&G, Siemens, Philips, Rolls Royce, Ford, GE, - we can see that much of their longevity is down to having developed a capacity to innovate in their process’, products and repeating it successfully. Success can strike by luck, but repeating it, there is bit more than luck.

The crossroad scientist Michael Faraday born on 22nd Sept 1791, was best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction and of the laws of electrolysis - his biggest breakthrough in electricity was his invention of the electric motor and benzene in chemistry with his three (3) years of formal schooling. The passion drives innovation which you are at "Crossroad".

Innomantra Strikes

InnOmantra: Inno: Meaning Innovation – Chant Innovation & build culture of Innovation or a climate for Innovation. Mantra meaning: They are primarily used as spiritual conduits, words or vibrations that instill one-pointed concentration in the devotee. Other purposes have included religious ceremonies to accumulate wealth, avoid danger, or eliminate enemies. The word mantra is a Sanskrit word consisting of the root man- "manas or mind" and the suffix -tra meaning, tool; hence a literal translation would be "mind tool". Mantras are interpreted to be effective as sound (vibration), to the effect that great emphasis is put on correct pronunciation (resulting in an early development of a science of phonetics in India).