Innovation Is The Brother Of Invention
It has been said that “ideas are a dime a dozen.” But, still, some people fear that they won’t be able to find a good idea at any price.
Q. I have long wanted to start my own business, but have kept putting it off for a lot of reasons. Now that I feel ready to make the move, I’m afraid that all of the good ideas are taken and I’ll never reach my dream, What’s left to invent?
A. Not to worry. There’s opportunity aplenty. Over 800,000 new businesses are started each year, and most of the ventures that are launched by serious entrepreneurs succeed.
Indeed, the pace promises to quicken. A recent survey found that almost seven million U.S. households - over seven percent of the total - have someone who is presently trying to start a business.
Importantly, you don’t have to be a genius-class inventor to cash in. Most commercially successful ideas result from innovation, not a rigorous, expensive, time-consuming process of invention.
An inventor creates something entirely new and truly unique, a “built-from-the-ground-up” item or process that never existed before. The transistor and laser are good examples.
An inventor in the truest sense of the word must have an in-depth understanding of the field in which he or she is working and, given the level of sophistication our economic society has achieved, this requires substantial experience and education. Moreover, significant amounts of time and money are generally required to fuel an inventor’s quest. That’s why most contemporary entrepreneurs are innovators not inventors.
Innovations are responsible for most of the commercially successful new businesses. An innovation is the combination or reconfiguration of existing items, inventions, or ideas into a new and different product, service or process.
Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer, bought most of the parts for their first PC at Radio Shack. Similarly, Henry Ford was not an inventor but a master at divining consumers needs and organizing resources and systems to meet them profitably.
Horseless carriages were already on the road when Ford introduced the assembly line, standardized parts and division of labor to produce a reliable auto at an affordable price. He also pioneered the five-day work week, an ingenious marketing innovation that eventually gave all of America’s labor force another day in which they could go someplace … by car, of course.
Ross Perot built EDS as a better way to use computer power. The MacDonald brothers simply redesigned the scheme of a traditional restaurant so that it could reliably and quickly provide quality, low-cost hamburgers and milkshakes, not novel foods by any stretch of the imagination.
Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn, just made the little “boxes” people stay in when they travel more comfortable, clean, accessible and affordable. It was a “home run” with a service that had been around since the time of Christ.
The microwave oven, ATM’s, HMO’s, radial tires, supermarket price scanner and cardiac defibrillators are all innovations, each the result of a clever innovator’s ability to tap into existing know-how and reassemble available technology into something new, different and valuable to consumers.
Wolf Schmitt, the CEO of Rubbermaid a company that prided itself on producing one new product a day - once observed: “The process of innovation is easy. Simply take A,B,C, and D and put them together in a new form called E.”
Research shows that most successful companies are not the product of formal research or inventive genius but are simply the result of someone “discovering” an unfulfilled need in the marketplace. Therefore, your biggest challenge as an innovator is to spot a new need or an opportunity to satisfy an existing need more efficaciously or economically.
You might even have to demonstrate there is a need before you mobilize to profit from it. Not many people knew they “needed” a microwave until they were shown the magic it could perform.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Paul Willax The Spokesman-Review