Creative Thinking.

Recently was invited by Insititute of Chartered Accountants, Muscat Chapter to talk about Creativity. Sharing key synopsis.

A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. That difference can be driven only if organizations think creatively. We live in an age of digitalization and globalization; innovation is the new normal. Research at the Yale School of Management predicts that by 2027, 75 percent of leading US firms will lose their place to currently unknown companies. This indicates that to succeed in a time of ever-changing technology and needs requires fast, adaptable, and creative thinking.

Henry Ford has a famous quote “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” We all know what he did after that. Likewise, we have lots of great stories e.g. how Apple launched I-Pod (excellent quality of music, a sleek looking gadget) and then I-Phone. You must meet some LATENT DEMAND which is driven by unmet needs.

Creativity for companies/startups can be put into five blocks:

? Lower costs; technology management; customers first: E.g. Zerodha which changed the game by creating a brokerage platform offering brokerage at ridiculously low price. This opened an avenue for millions of new customers to trade.

? Continuous quanta change and re‐invention; learn faster how to navigate uncertainty; stay ahead of the curve: E.g. Apple killed I-pod after launch of I-Phone. No other organization would have killed complete business line to offer something new to the customer. Every New Apple Phone today helps the company stay ahead of the competition.

? Business Re-invention creates opportunities to develop new forms of business from existing businesses. Examples Uber and Airbnb. Tech platform to offer Taxi’s and Hotel’s without any investment in physical assets.

? Process re‐engineering; agile organization, get more customers. Example Cavinkare a small company in South India in 1970-80, challenged all the large players by introducing talcum powder in twenty-gram packs and Epsom salt in five-gram sachets, taking share of market. Later the same company introduced Shampoo Sachets at Re 1. When the bigger players caught up, they went back to the drawing board and introduced Shampoo sachets at an even cheaper price of 0.50 Paisa which suddenly opened a new class of customers in lowest income strata.

? Product iteration-led approach. Example, in 2005, start-up named Odeo was building podcasting platform and just before their launch I-pod with same feature was in the market. Surely, they couldn’t compete with a tech giant like Apple. The founders went through multiple iterations to change their product, until it finally became a microblogging platform which was Twitter.

We come across so many great ideas and the list can be endless. My favorite is Alibaba which captures all the above five categories. Company which started as an internet company to bring buyers and sellers on one platform and from there kept on innovating to becomes amongst the most valued company.

Lastly, if you built something great, stay grounded, watch competition and don’t be arrogant. Examples, Titanic great ship could carry 64 lifeboats, Shipe design engineer recommended 48 lifeboats, and they carried 20 lifeboats, rest is history. Nokia and Kodak are other great companies which lost because of arrogance of management.

Creativity in the workplace is more important than ever today. Unfortunately, many work environments discourage people from taking creative risks. Organizations must empower workers to come up with their own creative solutions by challenging limitation mind-sets by creating an environment where everyone feels safe to make creative suggestions.