Eric Nies

When I was a kid, I stared in the above ad which won that year's "Reader Recognition Award" from Computer World magazine and got me a free dinner at a fancy restaurant. The real story was not that I hated getting pulled out the swimming pool for the photo shoot (even more than I hated the chocolate mousse they served at the awards dinner); but rather that a little company with a simple product had stole business away from a big company, like IBM.

The challenge of innovation As Clayton M. Christensen most effectively demonstrates in his very well-researched book The Innovator’s Dilemma , innovation doesn’t typically come from within the walls of large, well-financed companies, but rather from firms with less to lose.

A vicious cycle The situation goes, basically, like this: a guy or company comes up with some relatively simple, perhaps even technologically innovative, product or offering. They bring it to market and give it a go. With success and as the market clamors for their offering, they end up turning the market on its ear, in turn disrupting existing players. As a result, the “disruptor” grows like crazy, thanks to their innovative solution, and over time they add more features and functions. And, ironically, later they too may get “disrupted” as they balloon their offering. We’ve seen this with Snapchat and WhatsApp - they, not Facebook, came up with the innovation…even if people in those firms were formerly at Facebook.

Why does it have to be this way? Why? Why does the innovation happen at the fringe (or bottom) with simple solutions and not on top of core, mature, well-established offerings? Why does it take a PayPal to innovate payments?

As Clayton Christensen explains, existing players don’t want to be or can’t be bothered to defend the small and fringe markets. People in big firms sit around and think: “What? Charge just $39/user? Are you crazy? How can we make our target this year and what would happen (to my commissions) if we stopped selling the 6- and 7-figure deals to which we’re accustomed?” And so, the large players don’t fiddle with small solutions and, as a result, they get “disrupted.”

The entrenched have the market-dominating products and continue adding more features, functions and capabilities to them…to the point where the product gets more bells and whistles than a customer can use on a Christmas sleigh. At that point, with all their bureaucracy, titles, staff and departments to sustain, they are threatened to be disrupted.

Boiled Frogs The large firm, perhaps once an innovative product/company, no longer has the drive and agility and indeed can’t even realistically afford to go after (or even defend) the lower-end, simple markets. So, innovations (albeit simpler) are brought in at the lower-end, fringes of the market…by companies who have little if nothing to lose.

We saw it with low cost airlines and these days we see it with cars from Taiwan, just as we saw it with cars from Japan in the ’70s and ’80s. They weren’t great cars, not at the beginning, but they offered fuel efficiency (or reliability) – something the big American “boats” just couldn’t afford or risk to bring to market – until they were nearly broke and then were forced to do so.

Innovating Luggage Or, what about Bob Plath, who launched TravelPro in 1987 and brought us the original “Rollaboard?” It was a simple idea, not too technical, but a big disrupter. All Bob did was put wheels on luggage. For heaven’s sake, what took us 2,000+ years to put wheels on luggage? In fact, how did people do it in the ’80s with the big honkin’ suitcases they lugged around – no wonder it’s called “LUGgage.” Bob’s innovation disrupted an industry, which was stuck in its way of thinking, and this page contains the story. Duh, wish I’d thought of that!

Innovating Documents In the software market there are companies like PandaDoc . These guys do one thing, documents, and they do them really well. PandaDoc is a SaaS-based all-in-one document solution. It enables you to produce your quotes, proposals, claims letters, services letters, etc.… and have them delivered over the web…so you can track delivery, comments and even get an electronic signature once it’s sent. Check it out , it is really slick. They are innovating documents by making them simple and easy.

Invariably, developers, doing what they do, add features and functions to a product to the point that these new functions balloon the systems beyond what the users can handle (or want, for their core needs). This ultimately runs up the complexity, and price. So, where the systems may have originally been innovative, they soon become unwieldy and, in turn, leave open innovation for firms like Cogent .

Out of Taiwan It is interesting that Kias and Hyundais are having great success because of their reliability and cost effectiveness. It’s not because they innovate from technological perspective, but rather for the very fact that they don’t “innovate” (technologically speaking). They capitalize at the bottom end of the market in delivering a reliable and cost-effective car because they use pre-existing (read: proven) technology. They design cars with the “let’s use what already works” mentality rather than trying to something “off the wall” from the Elon Musk bag of tricks.

Be like Elon But, speaking of Elon, notice: how does he innovate? Usually, from a separate company, with unencumbered freedom. He doesn’t do it from within an existing structure, but rather from without. He looks at a market and says: “What does that market need?” and then sets people free to do it. Solar panel shingles being the latest “uh duh, I should have thought of that” innovation.

Again, with PRM as the example. What do you really want in a PRM system? What do your partners (minimally) want? Where’s the low-hanging fruit?

Or, be like Steve Jobs Sure there are functions like: Market Development Fund (MDFs), rewards, rebates and microsites which you can offer. But, more often than not, those things are “nice to haves” or stuff for mega large firms. But, what does a channel partner really want? Think like Steve Jobs…what are the must haves?

Simply, at the core, they want: simple communication, where they are…on their phone!

Communication with the channel, simple on-boarding and light opportunity reporting. That’s it! If that suits you, you might want to check out Cogent . They deliver the standard communication marketing wants, AND the simple elegance the field needs. So, why do more?

Innovate your channel! But, the opportunity to innovate rests with the challenger and the ability to use the leading tools. Mobile apps that enable companies to communicate with the channel, on their phone, in a slick and consistent way…like you’d find at: www.channelsalesautomation.co.uk . Innovate your channel!

Eric Nies

Cincinnati, Ohio, United States 6K followers 500+ connections

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Miami University

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