New Product Development

Was it a Breakthrough or an Adjacency?

Published date: December 31, 2023 в 10:56 pm

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Category: Brand and Marketing,Innovation,New Product Development,Strategy

This year, P&G’s Febreze celebrates its silver anniversary as a brand. But not all 25 years were a honeymoon. Launched in 1998, the fabric freshener quickly hit $100M in sales, but then slumped. In 2002, the brand was in danger of extinction until the company made a strategic decision: the Febreze brand, with its “Breath of Fresh Air” promise, would lead the company into its expansion into “Air Care”, a growth sector. The challenge was that the Air Care category was already dominated by protective goliath brands who would make entry very difficult. SC Johnson led the way with Glade followed by AirWick (Reckitt Benckiser), and Renuzit (Dial). SIT Innovation – Systematic Inventive Thinking ® was called in to help.

We all know the happy ending. Thanks to a successful entry in 2004, the Febreze brand thrived and, in 2011, joined the exclusive “Billion Dollar Brand” club. It has more than doubled those milestone sales in 2023.

So, what happened in 2002?

That was the year when P&G’s perfume chemists, Febreze brand team, and Innovation function members engaged SIT to help identify what breakthrough concept will help them enter this crowded field with an innovative, differentiated offering whose superiority would be obvious. Marketing already understood that price-of-entry into Air Care would require a spray (preferably not aerosol) which would need to be the first product launched. However, they also knew that plug-in air fresheners were the margin play and this is where they would need to win in order to achieve their business goals.

I was honored to be one of SIT’s experts to work on this project, alongside Amnon Levav, SIT’s co-founder. The SIT team was immersed in Febreze (not literally) for several weeks, including an intensive workshop in Cincinnati. The two highest rated plug-in ideas that the team generated through our approach were merged during convergence to form this concept:

Pulsating Plug-in. Habituation to one constant scent or level of scent is a problem that consumers are keenly aware of. They complain that a short while after beginning to use a Plug-in, they fail to notice the scent anymore and have no way of knowing that it is still working. To counter this problem, we will offer a pulsating Plug-in. Electrical heat will vary in strength or different perfume volatilities will be used in order to systematically and regularly alter the amount of scent emitted by the device.

Alternatively, the form will be dual chambered with two perfumes of different scents. So doing, the habituation to the scent will be delayed or non-existent.

This product, P&G’s first plug-in, was launched in 2006 and branded as Febreze NOTICEables, emphasizing the value the innovation delivered, moving beyond technical descriptors like “pulsating” or “dual-chamber”.

Just 5 years after entry, P&G’s Air Care portfolio had secured an impressive market share of 25%. Shortly thereafter, NOTICEables overtook Glade as the plug-in with the greatest market share.  After a few years of sustaining this title, P&G rebranded NOTICEables as “PLUG”. The NOTICEables name was retired after 13 years of hard work, establishing Febreze firmly in the exclusive $1B+ brand club. According to Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) annual report for 2023, Air Fresheners account for 80% of Febreze brand sales.

25 years ago, Procter & Gamble executives realized that the company would miss a market opportunity window if they didn’t act fast. They had many valuable assets in place – strong brand equity, world-class perfume expertise, distribution supremacy, an extremely professional team with senior leadership support – but struggled to find the product expression that would cash in on them. It was a solution that seems simple and obvious in hindsight, but far from intuitive in foresight, so characteristic of SIT’s Closed World-type innovations, that became a blockbuster.  It was a breakthrough solution that facilitated entry into an adjacency. Categorize it however you want; just make sure that you have several of them in your portfolio.

Happy Anniversary, Febreze!

Launching Innovations: The Do’s and Don’ts

Published date: October 19, 2023 в 1:21 pm

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Category: Innovation,New Product Development,Strategy

At some point as an innovation leader, you and your team will launch new innovations into the market place. Those could be new products and services, it could be a new advertising campaign, or simply displaying your products at a trade show. These initiatives are an important test of your leadership. So here are my tips – the DO’s and DON’Ts for launching new initiatives.

First, lead through people. That means delegating to your team rather than trying to take on these projects yourself. Your first priority is to create a team of A players. So now is the time to use them. Thoroughbreds like to run and run fast, so put them to work on these initiatives. If you’re thinking that “it’s easier to do it myself than to explain how to do it,” forget it. When you assign a new initiative to a person, tell them what you need done and what success looks like. Let them figure it out from there.

Next, be visible during the launch of any new initiative. There’re a lot of reasons for that. First, it motivates your people when they see you care enough to be part of their event. Second, it never hurts to have another pair of hands in case a team member needs help. As an innovation leader, don’t put yourself above the team when it comes to the dirty work. Hey, a good leader needs to pick up the broom and sweep the floor just like everyone else.

Finally, hold people accountable for the outcome. It’s critical that you give people constraints up front so they know the boundaries of what they can and can’t do. Measure those results and reward people for what they achieve. If they exceed the boundaries you set for them, you gotta point it out to them.

Now, let’s look at the don’ts.

First, whatever you do, don’t micromanage your people. Details are important in any initiative, but if you get in the habit of pointing out every last detail of a project, you’re telling your team that you don’t trust them. That will eventually undermine your leadership.

Next, never upstage your team members responsible for the event when the initiative is launched. If they do all the work but it’s you that gets in front of the camera to take all the credit, your team won’t ever be loyal to you again. Now it’s okay to manage up a bit and keep your bosses informed about the initiative, but just be sure to give credit to your team for their hard work. And by the way, when you give credit to others instead of taking it all yourself, your bosses look at you as someone who’s going to move up the ladder.

Finally, avoid playing the blame game. If the initiative doesn’t go well, take responsibility. Don’t start naming others on your team as the guilty party. You want to give that team member feedback about what could have been improved. But publicly blaming them for the failure is a mistake. As the leader, stand up and take full responsibility. But then go back and understand what went wrong. What were your assumptions? What unexpected things happened that hurt the initiative? And most importantly, what are you going to do about it next time? And that’s what great innovation leaders do. They create a competent team that continuously learns, and gets better every day.

Driving Automotive Innovation: maybe it’s time to change gears

Published date: June 21, 2023 в 1:08 pm

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Category: New Product Development,Strategy

In the 1st part of this article, I named the main forces that drive car innovation today and listed the main areas of focus for this industry.

In this part (2) I will share some recommendations for where, in my opinion, the industry should channel more attention and resources.

From the point of view of someone who studies and analyzes innovation, and after arguing that large parts of automotive innovation are too common and obvious, it is only fair to identify other areas for innovation that could lead to interesting results.

Here are some possible directions to explore. Some of them are applicable for all businesses and some are more specific to the car industry:

  1. Finance and Business Model Innovation: Often overlooked, this realm presents immense promise. By revolutionizing financing options and business models, companies can unlock new avenues of growth and profitability.
  2. Evolving Customer Dynamics: As the demographic landscape shifts, so too must our perception of value. Understanding the changing needs and expectations of different generations can lead to disruptive innovations that resonate deeply with customers.
  3. Ownership Redefined: The traditional ownership models—full, shared, and partial, as well as leasing and renting, have served us well. However, it’s time to think beyond these boundaries. By creating new models of ownership that provide greater flexibility and opportunities, we can reshape the way people interact with vehicles.
  4. Challenge the status quo by reimagining vehicle design and functionality: By breaking free from structural fixedness, we can create revolutionary concepts that enhance user experiences and redefine the purpose of vehicles.
  5. Modular Assembly: Introducing greater modularity into vehicle assembly and component design enables flexible customization, efficient production, and cost-effective maintenance. This modular approach promises a more agile and adaptable automotive industry.
  6. Spare Parts On-Demand: The ability to rapidly produce and supply spare parts on-demand is a game-changer for both manufacturers and consumers. Leveraging advanced manufacturing techniques and supply chain innovations, we can minimize downtime and enhance customer satisfaction. Tesla led the way by making upgrades and repair easy, simple and inexpensive, but this is more of being best in the game instead of changing the rules of the game.
  7. Technological Enablers: Embracing blockchain technology opens new avenues for secure data sharing and transactions within the automotive ecosystem. By harnessing the power of blockchain, we can build trust, streamline processes, and accelerate innovation.
  8. Accessibility for All: Let’s strive to make vehicles more accessible to individuals with disabilities. By developing adaptive technologies and inclusive features, we can empower a broader range of individuals to enjoy the freedom of driving and car ownership.
  9. Enhancing Productivity: Innovation can significantly enhance productivity by enabling firms to achieve greater output with the same inputs or maintain the same output with fewer inputs. This focus on productivity gains can fuel competitiveness and sustainability.

Innovation thrives when we foster a conducive environment. To truly unlock the potential of innovation, we must manage it as a robust business process. This entails embracing iterative approaches, holding management accountable, allocating time and resources for creative thinking, and fostering a culture that values both attempts and results.

By exploring these uncharted areas of innovation, we can revolutionize the automotive industry and shape a future where mobility seamlessly integrates with societal needs and aspirations.

If you found this article insightful, I invite you to engage in a discussion and share your thoughts on the potential areas for automotive innovation. Together, let’s shape the future of mobility.

Driving Automotive Innovation: Maybe it’s time to change gears

Published date: June 16, 2023 в 5:06 pm

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Category: New Product Development,Strategy

A few weeks ago, I participated in a discussion organized by the innovation team of a very large car company. The discussion, naturally, had to do with innovation. Most of the participants were excited about new emerging technologies and the promise of almost-here self-driving cars.

I have been in these conversations many times before – people tend to confuse Innovation (New + Unique + Applicable) with new (better, stronger, faster, technology-based…). I thought that it will be interesting to try and analyze the state of innovation in the automotive industry and see what conclusions we can draw.

In the 1st part of this article, I will name the main forces that drive car innovation today and list the main areas of focus for this industry.

In part 2 I will share some recommendations for where, in my opinion, the industry should channel more attention and resources.

 Part 1

Over the last 20+ years, I have collaborated and participated in innovation activities in the automotive sector. It’s widely known that regulations serve as a driving force behind automotive innovation. Every year, the public, due to new regulations put in place and the enforcement of existing regulations, expects new models to be more efficient, safer, more environmentally friendly, and more sustainable. Here as some of the key factors influencing the current state of innovation in car companies:

  1. Technological Parity: With technology becoming readily accessible to all players in a matter of months, gaining a technological advantage has become increasingly elusive. Automakers must now navigate a realm where everyone has access to similar advancements. Where does true innovation lie when the playing field is level?
  2. Battery Revolution: The remarkable drop in battery prices, a staggering 60% over the past five years, has ushered in a new era for electric vehicles (EVs). With the cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) now at $250, compared to $1,000 in 2010, EVs are poised to achieve cost parity with their gasoline counterparts within the next five years. This revolution paves the way for more sustainable and environmentally friendly transportation.
  3. The Impact Equation: In general, economists have noted a decline in the impact of innovation on our lives, as new enabling technologies no longer exhibit the transformative power they once did.
  4. Changing the Rules: While many players focus on excelling within the existing automotive landscape, there is a bigger promise in changing the rules of the game. Automakers and adjacent industries should be investing their innovation efforts and resources in reshaping the very foundations of the industry. By challenging conventional wisdom, they will be more successful at unleashing untapped potential.

Many of the automotive developments we see, presented to us as innovation, are actually common practice and known among the category players.

There are many different characterizations and definitions for INNOVATION. To be able to distinguish it from ‘normal’ R&D, Continuous Improvement, Process Excellence and product / technology evolution, we apply a few different models. You can learn more about the main characteristics I used to create this list in this TED talk.

The leading topics in most of the innovation discussions I have seen, both physical and online, are:

  1. Re-designing the cockpit and updating the passenger experience.
  2. Minimizing the environmental footprint – supply chain, materials, carbon emission etc.
  3. Adapting bold and unique design platforms based on computer algorithms that allow different angles and cuts to be merged on surfaces in several layers.
  4. Evolution, continued improvements, available/affordable technologies.
  5. Electric cars – software, hardware, and engineering.
  6. Autonomous cars – pushing forward technologies and regulations.
  7. Advanced active safety systems with artificial intelligence, mainly based on the development of radar, sensors, and cameras to create augmented reality decoded by artificial intelligence capability.
  8. Major collaborations – for example: Ford and Google announced recently a unique strategic partnership that will accelerate innovation in the automotive industry and reinvent the customer experience in the connected car. Ford has also chosen Google Cloud as its preferred cloud provider, and will leverage Google’s global expertise in data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). As part of the new six-year partnership, starting in 2023, millions of Ford and Lincoln cars of all price tags will be based on the Android operating system, including all Google services and applications.
  9. Data security and data privacy technologies.
  10. Augmented reality displays in vehicles.
  11. Wireless charging for electric vehicles.
  12. Advanced infotainment systems, including voice recognition and touchscreens.
  13. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology.
  14. Predictive maintenance using machine learning and AI.
  15. Augmented reality maintenance and repair guides for technicians.

This is a very long list!

While these are impactful improvements that will provide a lot of value to the market, I would consider these efforts as necessary, expected, common and good. This is ‘natural evolution’ of a healthy industry. In addition to that, I would expect to see some more unique, counter-intuitive directions.

In part two of this article we will suggest some possibilities to be considered by business and innovation leaders in the car industry.

The Secret Formula – AD in Finance

Published date: September 30, 2022 в 12:36 pm

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Category: New Product Development,Organizational Innovation,Strategy

Some years ago, we were invited to work with a large Chinese bank in Singapore. The bank’s challenge was that banking products are heavily regulated, and almost identical, and therefore the market was saturated. Coming up with new and attractive saving and personal loan product was almost impossible. We were sent to work in an effort to enrich their pipeline with differentiated products.

Finance is an extremely controlled category; these heavy and strict regulations make innovation seem harder (a perception we understand but disagree with 😊) and create very little divergence in offerings. Furthermore, given that the banking industry has been operating for over two hundred years, it is fair to assume that people in this field will carry a lot of cognitive bias regarding the ways business is done.

Given this context, some would have passed on this proposal. However, at SIT, we really like these types of challenges.

Who said that innovation is easy work😊?

While preparing for the project, we reviewed many banking products and financial tools, both old and new, realizing that from the point of view of innovation, there are many developments around automation, accessibility, and accuracy, but not many about the way these tools are used or how their value is perceived. In one of our interviews with the team before the workshop started, a team member even said to us explicitly: “a loan is a loan is a loan! There is not much to change or invent here…”.

For us, at SIT, this comment was a good provocation – we wanted to find out how our tools can be effective in changing this preposition.

So, let’s turn our attention to Cognitive Fixedness. In this case, we want to delve into Relational Fixedness – or the tendency to view relationships and dependencies between variables of a situation, as static and permanent.  A simple and common way to illustrate this type of bias will be by looking at the price of alcoholic beverages in a bar: back in the days, the price of a pint of beer, for example, was determined by its costpopularity, and expected profit margins. This was uniform across the world. Imagine that at some point, someone, thought that it might be more attractive to customers to create a new ‘relationship’ between, say, the cost of the beverage and the time of day(!). In this new relationship, two variables (cost of the beverage and time of daywere put together to create a new set of possibilities – the price will change according to the time one order or pay for one’s drink. This can be applied in several configurations: at given hours the price will go up (possible value could be to decrease overflow of customers or to generate premium in peak hours), the price can go down in some hours of the day (possible value could be to increase visits and consumption on the ‘slow’ hours of the afternoon and early evening, the price will change according to shift-time, light time and nighttime, etc.  By now, you have probably guessed – we are referring to the now-well-known idea of Happy Hour – when price is dropped in the slow hours in bars.

Sometimes people come up with ideas and solutions that create these types of new connections, but when this happens, the concept of creating a “relationship” or “dependence” is usually intuitive and implicit in the idea, rather than leading to it.

In our world of innovation, one of the most powerful and interesting tools that we use, is designed to achieve exactly this: Attribute Dependency is a thinking tool that can create an infinite number of new ‘relationships’ based on the variables you choose. It does so in a structured and organized way, that is useful in two respects: by helping you manage many possible configurations (pre-ideas) in a short time, and given its systematic nature, it suspends your intuition and forces you to consider possibilities that are unique and counter intuitive.

What do these concepts have to do with our innovation project? During preparations, we noticed that checking, savings, and loan products are often constructed by creating relationships between two or more variables. For example – the value of a savings account is determined by the relationships between (1) the saving sum, (2) the saving period and (3) the paid interest. Traditionally, these were the only variables that are considered. Now, understanding that this was due to some kind of Relational Fixedness, it should be very interesting to see what happens if we change the existing relationships and also bring in more variables.

And this is exactly what the team did. The project team, a mix of product, market, service, finance, and IT experts, started to collect many different attributes. We made a point NOT to choose or priorities any of the new attributes, mainly because we didn’t want to limit ourselves to only ‘reasonable’ and ‘logical’ ideas. This is based on the SIT Function Follows Form (FFF) principal that ensure that you will first create a “virtual Idea” and only than work on making business sense out of it. It leads into combinations and configurations that are counter intuitive, hence – considered highly innovative. Most of the work was around this idea of creating, very systematically, new relationships between internal attributes (variables that we, the Bank, can control or influence) and external attributes (variables that we, the Bank, cannot control or influence), and trying to identify unique value propositions.

The project ended up with many exclusive and valuable ideas, as well as with a long list of insights and future opportunities. This motivated us to research and validate our discovery that that many, if not all, banking product and financial instruments are easy to explain with the SIT thinking tool of Attribute Dependency.

Furthermore, the SIT tool is not only good in explaining the way these product and services are constructed, but in giving us a structured and systematic way to manipulate and change the existing products. Breaking relational fixedness make these new offerings more unique, valuable, and exciting.

Back to the project with the bank, here are some ideas that best illustrate the value in using SITs’.

Please note that ideas are shared because they were both new and unique at the time, AND were believed to be commercially viable by the experts in the room:

— A savings account, where the Tier of interest and Type of Transaction were connected – the more scheduled transactions you conduct, the higher the rate of interest you receive.

  • Value for the customer: good for cash management, higher interest, rewarding the client for being organized
  • Value for the bank: strong point of differentiation, motivates clients to be more organized

— A checking account, where the Type of Transaction and Type of Statement were connected – a customer that owns an account with many different transactions and a higher rate of activities will get a very detailed statement, with high resolution info, analytics, and recommendations. A customer with similar account but with low number of activities and simple, routine transactions will receive a brief and minimal statement.

  • Value for the customer: the more sophisticated you are, the more involved, the more information on different channels you will receive. It also contributes to one’s self- esteem and prestige. For account owners with ‘simple’ checking accounts, the promise is to relieve them from these long, standard, high-resolution statements.
  • Value for the bank: strong point of differentiation, feeds the bank with insights for high-profile customers, that in turn will lead to more successful sales.

— The Network Effect (today we will probably call it “the influencer model” 😊) – connecting Number of Other Bank Customers You Have Business Interaction With, and the Types of Discounts, Gifts and Status Points you get. 

  • Value for the customer: discounts, gifts, and status points, as well as being perceived as well-connected and trusted.
  • Value for the bank: strong point of differentiation, encouraging relationships among clients, establishing and managing communities, and reducing risks by adding social context to working with the bank.

By recognizing the underlying structure of all financial products and instrument, and connecting it to an innovation tool, we felt that we ‘cracked’ the Secret Formula for these types of products.

Since then, we have used this approach many times in creating new products and services, business models and application. This ability, of systematically generating many unique ideas in very short time, in a format that combines both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, yields concepts and configurations that are later on easy for management to access, approve, and implement.

It is good to remember that Relational Fixedness is present in many other aspects of our lives and is not limited to banking products and financial instruments. Can you think of other industry sectors that can be explained by AD?

The Five Drivers Behind Food Innovation

Published date: April 8, 2022 в 4:34 pm

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Category: Innovation,New Product Development

One of my best friends, Rosa Seidenwar, is a pastry chef, food photographer, and stop motion artist. This gives me many perks, especially when a new recipe is in the works and I get called upon for my taste testing skills. Yes, it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. As I nibbled, taking in all the flavors and textures, I couldn’t help but marvel. Even with the colossal amount of food items, recipes, cookbooks, food blogs, food shows, restaurants, delivery methods (did I leave anything out?) – people are still able to come up with something new! And what’s more, consumers aren’t ready to say – Thank you! We have enough! In fact, according to a study by NielsenIQ, a third of Americans are actively looking for new products to try. Which makes product innovation still a lead runner for food corporations, as opposed to, say, taking a year off and just focusing on productivity (same study states that 30,000 new products are launched each year in the consumer packaged goods industry). Having worked with food corporations in the past and seeing their modes for launching innovations, I was curious to also hear Rosa’s take, as representing the personal brands rising in the industry.

 So if food innovation is your bread-and-butter, here are five drivers that keep product innovation going at such an intensity:

  1. Technology: New technology is affecting practically every aspect of the food industry – whether it’s the ingredients themselves (think cell-based meats), the equipment used on manufacturing lines, and kitchenware readily available and affordable to the regular consumer. This can deliver a whole slew of products that consumers can try out, whether because they can be manufactured, or because they can now be tried out at home.
  2. Digital: Apps and social media have changed the way we interact with food altogether. Whether its tracking calories, scanning QR codes on labels for the history of a food product, and the constant picture-perfect meals uploaded to insta, keeping up with the Jones’ has reached new heights and consumers are demanding products that meet these needs.
  3. Trends and lifestyle: I hate to use the C word, but Covid has changed a lot about how we connect with food. Whether it’s dining-in, family oriented meals, meals that are experiences, the food industry picks up on these trends (and other non-C related ones) and will create new products or adapt existing ones to suit. Working from home requires less products suited for eating on the go and gives rise to products like subscription boxes for creating meals at home. We see global trends such as sustainability affecting how ingredients are used and used up. And of course, while healthy eating never goes out of style, the introduction of new diets (Keto, Whole 30) also spark interest in new food items to match.
  4. New ingredients: The introduction of new or lesser used ingredients like monk fruit, microalgae, etc. (remember when spirulina was new?) or finding new uses for favorite ingredients like chocolate, peanut butter, and yogurt to fuel the inspiration for new products on the market. The motion for reducing waste and upcycling food leads to creativity in using previously overlooked by-products in new products.
  5. Your “Secret Sauce”: This last point is what gives each brand their exclusive drive. Ultimately, the food industry is made up of people, whether it’s one person in their home business, or teams of people in a large company). Each person involved in the food industry has their own unique offering and passion that they bring with them. It could be their experience from working in the industry or on a certain product line, the training they received at culinary school or degree in food science, or their market knowledge. It could be on a personal level such as affinities for fair trade, use of specific ingredients, risk taking, simple vs. complex flavors, specific cuisines. The combination makes up their secret sauce for what drives their creativity. You can look at this on a broader level, as what is each company’s secret sauce? What are the resources and strengths and cumulative experiences that can inspire?

So which is the biggest driver for you? The upside is, these drivers are very much connected. Ingredients can lead to products that establish behaviors. Behaviors can influence which ingredients are used. Technology can feed into trends that lead to products, and so forth. So once you get yourself onto one, you can always follow the arrows to the other.  But your “Secret Sauce”? No one can follow that but you.

New Dimensions in Cosmetology

Published date: November 11, 2021 в 5:36 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,New Product Development

What do the following products have in common?

  1. diapers with a wetness indicator
  2. sunscreen with adjustable SPF
  3. a mud mask

The answer “family vacation” may come to mind, but we suggest that these three products share a common underlying pattern. Interestingly enough, research has shown that if you examine totally different innovative products on the market, they tend to share common patterns. And surprisingly, the majority of new and inventive products fall into only five patterns.

However, categorizing innovative products is not enough when trying to come up with a new one. What needs to be done is to find a way to follow these patterns, preferably in a conscious methodical way.

SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking), is the name both of a company and of a method it developed based on these very patterns. The patterns have been transformed into five “thinking tools” that are applied in a structured process leading to innovative ideas for new products. The method is applied to help organizations and individuals become more innovative, by using these patterns in a systematic process applicable to people’s daily tasks.

This article focuses on patterns evident in the cosmetics industry. A description of the application of these patterns and tools in the field of chemistry can be found in the Journal of Business Chemistry.

Let’s look at the examples presented at the beginning of the article.

Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories worked with the SIT company and method for over two years. Many of Ahava’s recent patent registrations have the imprint of SIT tools resulting from working together.

During a workshop, one of the five SIT tools, Attribute Dependency, was applied. This tool involves the creation of new relationships between the different variables of a product or its immediate environment. Innovative ideas are generated through creating new dependencies, or alternatively, modifying or dissolving existing ones. One of Ahava’s patents, a Purifying Mud Mask, demonstrates this tool. The product is applied as a typical mud mask, yet does not retain that function over time.

The mask undergoes a chemical process that changes it into a “peeling” to remove dead skin. Most 2-in-1 products serve multiple functions at the same time, such as Shampoo and Conditioner in one. The uniqueness of the Purifying Mud Mask is that it provides dual functions but at different times. Since it is physically impossible that the functions of a Mud Mask and a Peeling occur simultaneously, it was the ability to imagine the same product changing its properties over time that allowed the team to come up with this breakthrough idea.

Let us look back at the other examples. By now you may have guessed that diapers with a wetness indicator and sunscreen with adjustable SPF are also examples of Attribute Dependency. How so? The first are training diapers with a wetness indicator embedded in the diaper’s design so that when the diaper gets wet its color fades. This on the one hand encourages the child to “keep” the graphic on the diaper, while on the other hand, keeps the parent abreast of their child’s situation. We can see here that a dependency was created between the level of dampness and color, resulting in raising awareness in a clear, visual manner.

In contrast, the sunscreen with the adjustable SPF actually breaks a dependency. The existing dependency between skin type and level of SPF has usually caused one of two things when dealing with two people with different skin types: they either buy two different bottles or compromise. However, a new sunscreen on the market eliminates this dependency by allowing the selection of different SPF levels with the turn of a dial.

These examples are just a taste of what the SIT method can offer. Why waste time hoping for an opportune moment to land into one of the five categories of innovative products? By using the Attribute Dependency tool, as well as the four other tools in its toolkit, you can assure yourself of the ability to introduce innovative products of your own onto the market.

Reference:

Stern Yoni, Biton Idit, Ma’or Ze’ev. 2006. “Systematically Creating Coincidental Product Evolution: Case Studies of the Application of the Systematic Inventive Thinking ® (SIT) Method in the Chemical Industry.” Journal of Business Chemistry Vol. 3, Issue 1, 13-21.

New Thought for Food

Published date: October 13, 2021 в 12:15 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,New Product Development,Strategy

The meat analog market in the 1970s was in need of a facelift. At the time, meat analogs were divided into two types of products: soy based and wheat based. The problem was that while meat analog products looked like meat and tended to be healthy, their taste and texture were so unconvincing that eating soy dogs and soy burgers was often likened to chewing on tasteless cardboard. It was a niche market dedicated to “hard-core” vegetarians.

Meanwhile, a young Israeli food technologist, Michael Shemer, was methodically trying to invent “edible” meat analogs. He focused his efforts on three essential attributes: taste, texture, and nutritional value. He experimented for years with wheat and soy proteins and in the early 1980s had a breakthrough when he combined the two vegetable proteins. He quickly evolved his technology into a line of meat analog products and found a home for them at Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot. Production began in 1985 under the name of Tivall, later to become part of the Nestlé Corp.

The new products met the growing demand from consumers who wanted nutritional, yet tasty meat substitutes suitable to their dynamic, on-the-run lifestyles. Today, Tivall is a world leader in the industry and renowned for its rapid product development and award winning, innovative products. Many of us may know, or may even be, a food technologist whose fate has followed a similar path. For Shemer, however, this was only the beginning of a life-long quest for a more structured approach to inventing new-to-the-world food technologies—a method he later adopted, called Systematic Inventive Thinking®.

Where Ideas Come From

Traditionally, there exist three sources for new product ideas: (1) surveying competitors, (2) identifying needs through market research, and (3) developing new technologies. Surveying competitors, often known as the “safe path,” cannot result in unique or differentiating products, as they largely offer consumers more of the same, just under a different brand name. Furthermore, research shows that these “me-too” products have an 80% chance of failure, which is the same as (or slightly higher than) “new-to-the-market” products. Catering to identified market needs, although crucial for keeping a company competitive in the market, rarely results in true innovations. Research conducted by Goldenberg and Mazursky (1999) validates that customers are a poor source of quality information when it comes to innovation, since most people find it difficult to imagine things that do not yet exist. Although consumers do have latent needs, they are not fully aware of, it is difficult for them to state them explicitly. Moreover, polling a consumer base that is equally available to all players in the market makes it difficult to identify unique needs and create exclusive products that the competition does not yet have in development. The authors concluded that “There is a clear need for an approach that can lead to exclusive discoveries that can take the marketplace by surprise. Such innovative ideas must be captured before the market submits strong signals to its needs, rendering market research methods (for eliciting ideas) less effective.”

Developing a new technology platform can be a strong source leading to proprietary innovations, but it thereby poses a twofold problem: First, it is not a process by which a company can plan its pipeline. When exactly a new technology will be ready for market is a fickle and unreliable phenomenon. Second, creating a completely new technology is often the more-expensive and high-risk option. The only source leading to true innovation—new technology development—must become a process that is more efficient.

New Technology Development

To many, creativity is synonymous with free thinking. It is believed that if only there were no constraints, people could think of the wild, breakthrough ideas for their industry. Yet, studies by Goldenberg et al. (1999) showed that constrained-thinking processes provided superior results to ideas generated by humans thinking without constraints. This idea superiority was apparent for both the creativity and originality evaluations of the ideas. The aura of free thinking for generating innovation nevertheless endures. This is because many constraints truly are stifling for creativity. Thus, it is not enough to say that constraints enhance creativity, rather the proper constraints—those that promote creativity—need to be identified.

 

One of these “creativity-facilitating constraints” is the Closed World principle. This principle posits that the only resources for innovating are those that already exist in the product’s immediate environment (Horowitz and Maimon, 1999). These include the essential elements in the product, including its physical components as well as its variables like color or size. The immediate environment of the product is also inventoried for its components and variables. These elements—and only these elements—lead to finding new ideas and solutions. No new types of resources or technologies are allowed to enter into the idea-generation process. Unknowingly, Shemer utilized the Closed World principle when inventing his product. As opposed to his unsuccessful attempts at using other plant-based materials, the secret to his success was manipulating elements within the two leading meat analog bases—soy and wheat proteins, resources already existing in the Closed World. One of the Closed World’s main benefits is that it relies solely on a company’s existing resources and knowledge base, providing a “leg-up” so that it needn’t start from scratch and can more readily assess the feasibility of the solution.

Shemer, as well as many other developers in parallel industries, realized in hindsight that he had been inventing by applying the Closed World principle all along. Had he realized what he was doing earlier, his development process would have cut down years of research, instead of happening by “accident,” during one of several dozen experiments. Once aware of the Closed World principle and the benefits it provides, Shemer learned a system to more proactively apply constraints to expedite product development processes.

Vegetable Dough Example

A prime example of this is Shemer’s leadership role in the development of Tivall’s latest award-winning product, a revolutionary vegetable dough (Figure 1). As Vice President of Strategic Innovation and R&D, he was assigned the task of innovating an existing Tivall product line: vegetable-filled pastries. Tivall’s core competency—its Closed World—is innovative uses of vegetable materials. With that in mind, Shemer’s rephrasing of his task was already half of the solution: To identify new ways to use vegetable elements in the pastries to generate an innovative food technology platform.

Utilizing his food technology knowledge, he was able to find a way to replace more than 85% of the flour in the product. The technology used to integrate the vegetables into the dough allowed for a completely new line of products consisting of puff pastry dough, yeast raised dough, and short dough, each of which can be made of different types of vegetables, including sweet potatoes, spinach, corn, and cauliflower. More benefits of this proprietary dough became apparent with the realization that it could also be marketed as a separate product for home cooking and baking. The vegetable dough was launched in 2005 and met with instant success. It won an award in the Savory Frozen Foods category at the 2006 Sial International Exhibition of Food Industry.

An Innovation Algorithm

While the Closed World principle identifies the resources that we are allowed to use (and those we are not), it does not dictate enough how to use these resources. This, another variety of constraint, needed to be formulated to guide the developer in a more systematic manner through the thinking process. The solution was found in a body of research begun by Genrich Altschuller, a naval engineer from the former Soviet Union, who studied thousands of patents and found that creative solutions share common patterns. Based on his research results, he developed a method that he called Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). His students later evolved the method into what is today called Systematic Inventive Thinking and expanded Altschuller’s pattern recognition into the field of product development. It is evident that inventors unknowingly follow patterns when coming up with product ideas. In essence, they impose on themselves thinking constraints that result in innovative outputs. A novice inventor would expect there to be dozens, even hundreds, of patterns that lead to inventions. This makes SIT’s findings that more than 70% of successful new products can be categorized according to only five patterns even more surprising. In contrast, fewer than 20% of unsuccessful product launches could be classified according to these same patterns (Goldenberg and Mazursky, 2002). The following are the five patterns in this approach:

• Subtraction. This pattern instructs the inventor to look at the Closed World and, as opposed to the conventional approach to new product development, subtract an essential element rather than add one. This constraint is unintuitive in two senses: first, we are not adding or improving something to create a new offering in the market; second, the subtracted element cannot be one that was originally detrimental (e.g., fat), but one that was thought to be essential, with no logical reason for being subtracted.

Examples of this pattern are largely seen in the “instant” product category, such as soups or cakes from which the liquid or eggs was subtracted. Although understandable today, it is easy to imagine the resistance to the concept of removing the water (essentially, the soup) from the soup when the idea was first proposed.

• Multiplication. While it is clear how subtracting something essential from a resource-base would be a strong constraint, with the Multiplication pattern it is less obvious. This pattern allows the technologist to add elements that were previously not available. Nevertheless, what is allowed to be added is highly constrained. This pattern is about adding one or more copies of an existing component in the product or system, and then modifying the copy so that it is different according to one of its original component parameters.

Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Crust Pizza is a good example. When looking to innovate pizzas, the most common path is to simply add a different type of topping or to change the organoleptic properties of one of the primary ingredients (e.g., the dough or sauce). However, the stuffed crust was a true innovation and example of Multiplication, since it added more of an existing component (the cheese), but changed its location on the diameter of the pizza (placing it inside the crust). The consumer benefit was readily apparent: the pizza eating experience now facilitated more cheese in every bite, especially toward the edge of the pie, where cheese is not typically sprinkled on top. Not surprisingly, when it was launched in 1995, it became one of Pizza Hut’s more successful products.

• Division. This pattern dictates that all product components remain and none are added, but several are reorganized in time or space. Thus, the product gestalt is broken, degrees of freedom are added to the thinking process, and the Closed World remains confined. This pattern is noticeable in a wide range of solutions for products suffering from short shelf life. Products such as Yakult and Actimel, including functional ingredients like probiotics, are healthy for consumption but have shelf life challenges because their potency deteriorates in a liquid medium.

The Swedish company BioGaia provided an innovative solution to lengthen the shelf life: separating (dividing) the probiotic culture from the yogurt. Its LifeTop straw supplies the consumer with Lactobacillus reuteri in each sip (or through a bolus during the first draft) through the straw instead of being mixed in with the yogurt. The straw allows yogurt producers to keep the probiotic ingredients dry, separate from the yogurt, until the actual time of consumption. The VIZcap™ (www.vizdrink.com) offers a similar solution in the vitamin-enhanced sport drink segment. The supplements are kept separated from the liquid by being stored in a sealed chamber inside the bottle cap. They are only added to the drink just prior to consumption, dropping into the liquid when the consumer twists the cap to open it.

 Attribute Dependency. This pattern relates to the attributes or variables that exist in the Closed World of the product. It involves the creation of new relationships between the variables of a product or its immediate environment. Attributes of a product (Figure 2) can be internal, such as its texture, color, fat content, and temperature; or external, such as consumer attributes (e.g., gender, age) or consumption attributes (e.g., consumption location, eating occasion, accompanying foods).

When SIT Ltd. was invited to conduct a project with Nestlé Corp., the chosen topic was flavor solutions. Salad dressings were chosen as the Closed World starting point for generating ideas. The internal attributes were systematically paired with external attributes to identify interesting new relationships. When working with “texture” and “accompanying foods,” the developers posited that the product’s texture can be changed according to the food on which it is being used. A list of typical accompanying foods was hastily created (e.g., lettuce, tomatoes, sandwiches, chips, burgers, etc.) to make the process as systematic as possible.

An idea began to emerge as the developers imagined a thicker-textured dressing for sandwich usage. Marketing saw the emerging opportunity and suggested that it could be a spreadable dressing for sandwiches, similar in texture to mustard or ketchup. To that point, people had been observed pouring Nestlé’s existing Thousand Island dressing onto their sandwich bread to add flavor, trading sogginess for taste. The spreadable solution would solve this contradiction. As a result, Nestlé launched in Israel a line of sandwich spreads, including Thousand Island and Garlic flavors, positioned for sandwich consumption (Figure 3).

• Task Unification. In this pattern, an additional task is given to an existing resource. This tool helps to eliminate “functional fixedness,” in which each component is seen to perform only one task and additional tasks require the addition of more components. The essence of this pattern is to view all of a product’s existing components as potential resources that function in more than one role.

Unilever’s Cornetto was originally manufactured by an Italian ice cream manufacturer, Spica, who in 1959 was able to solve the problem of marketing frozen ice cream cones. Until then, it was difficult to market frozen ice cream cones because the ice cream caused the cone to dampen over time. Spica overcame the problem by inventing a process in which the inside of the waffle cone is coated with a mixture of oil, sugar, and chocolate, insulating it from the ice cream. Oil, sugar, and chocolate had always been available resources in the Closed World of ice cream but had their own tasks of promoting either texture or flavor. Utilizing these same components for the purpose of insulation was considered a breakthrough. Today, we can witness several examples of chocolate coating inside non-frozen cones to prevent ice cream leakage during consumption.

A Systematic Approach

Combining the Closed World principle with the five patterns results in a much more structured approach, the SIT method (Figure 4). Let’s examine this approach through the process of vegetable dough invention:

First, the developers defined the Closed World of the product. They broke the product down to its fundamental components and identified available resources. These included the various types of vegetables used for the fillings, as well as dough ingredients such as flour and other grains, salt, sugar, vitamins, and packaging.

Second, they applied the task unification tool. They systematically examined each component to see whether its function could be performed by the vegetables or some elements of them. Scoping out the list of components, they considered their options for manipulation. Seeing that the vegetables already dominated the inside of the pastry, they asked themselves whether the vegetables could also take over the outside.

Third, they defined the “virtual product.” The team envisioned creating pastry dough out of vegetables.

Fourth, they identified needs, benefits, and markets. The market value of such a product was clear—it could offer high nutritional value with low caloric value and almost no saturated fats. As for its innovative appeal, the developers felt that a product like that could be the basis of an entire platform of product lines.

Fifth, they checked feasibility and identified challenges. After the team unsuccessfully s subtracted all the flour, several adaptations led to a final product that had only 15% the normal amount of flour in it. The remaining 85% was replaced by vegetables by extracting the starches and other constituents of the vegetable and using them to replace the starches of the dough.

Of course, this thinking process does not replace market testing. It is at this stage that we look outside our company—to the market—for inputs. Thus, marketing research remains an integral part of the innovation process, but it simply moves to a later stage. Companies no longer need to depend on the market to raise ideas for them—there is a structured, internal process for that. The research is there to validate and “tweak” the ideas to make the technologies as marketable as possible.

A Recipe for Success

The SIT process leads developers to innovative technological concepts that can surprise and delight the market. But, because of the constraints, the process also relies heavily on the existing knowledge base of the company, as represented by its food technologists. In fact, this is the very reason that SIT ideas—and new technology ideas in general—lead to differentiated products in the market. Instead of depending on information streaming in from the market—a source available to everyone—the ideas arise as a product of the company’s unique intellectual property, proprietary knowledge, and current resources. Developing new technologies in an efficient, structured manner, leading to differentiated, innovative products on the market is what we’d call a recipe for success.

BY YONI STERN, ROBYN TARAGIN, AND SHAHAR LARRY

Originally published FOOD TECHNOLOGY 10.07

The History Corner: How Sliced Bread Became the Benchmark for Future Inventions

Published date: September 8, 2021 в 1:38 pm

Written by:

Category: Innovation,New Product Development

Over the past century or so, innovation is gradually becoming a more dominant factor in our world. However, despite the increasing presence and influence innovations have on our everyday lives, none of them made it into our language – save one: sliced bread. We often hear statements like “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!” But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how this seemingly simple innovation managed to become the benchmark for future inventions? A closer look at the history of sliced bread may shed some light on this question.

 

 

In the early years of the 20th century, Otto Frederick Rohwedder had a revolutionary idea: why not sell bread that is already sliced?! A Jeweler by profession, Rohwedder had little to do with the baking industry, but living in a small town in Iowa, right in the middle of the bread basket of America, he was no stranger to it.

In 1912, he decided to implement his vision and started to develop a machine that would automatically slice bread. As his project advanced, he soon realized that slicing bread created a new problem – the multiple surfaces of the sliced bread made it hard to keep it from going stale. It was 16 years later that he completed developing a bread slicer that not only sliced the bread, but also wrapped it in wax paper to keep it fresh.

 Source: http://dailymail.co.uk

Overcoming doubts

Although many bakers had their doubts about this strange machine, the first Rohwedder Bread Slicer was sold after 16 years in 1928. And by July that same year, the first loaf of pre-sliced bread went on shelves in Chillicothe, Missouri. Soon after, in 1930, a company called Wonder Bread started marketing sliced bread nationwide.

Sliced bread saved time and effort for consumers and made it easier to reach for a second and third slice, increasing comfort and consumption. It also gave a boost to pop-up toasters, which had been languishing on the shelves since 1926, as well as to spreads such as peanut butter and jam.

Source:http://priceonomics.com

Slice a piece

So, what is it about this invention that earned it its unique place? Was it the unveiling of such a dominant need that was latent for so many years? Was it the fact that even one of the oldest, most basic products in the world can could be reinvented? Was it the immense success of an idea that is so simple it seems almost obvious in hindsight? Or was it the fact that even such an iconic invention still took almost two decades to develop and implement?

Whatever the historic answer may be, there is much to learn from the story of sliced bread. It is a story of a man and an idea – a story that turns out to be far more complicated than you might expect. It paved the path for future inventions. It involved insight, challenge, creativity and perseverance – much like the story of any successful innovation.

So whatever you spread on your bread – peanut butter & jelly, cream cheese or humus – tell us what you think made this innovation resonate so loudly in our collective minds.

We would love to hear what you think.

3 SIT Case Studies to Inspire Your Company’s New Product Development

Published date: July 21, 2021 в 4:19 pm

Written by:

Category: Innovation,New Product Development,Strategy

Companies are constantly trying to create something fresh and original, but where do they even start? A common go-to is good ole brainstorming, but as we have repeatedly stressed, this is not an effective way to ideate. That’s when SIT steps in – making ideation more efficient and creative through proven, structured strategies and methods. SIT’s project outcomes are commonly true revolutions in the sector, even though they are based on your existing products or services. Here are some NPD case studies that we are proud to have led, which exemplify SIT’s methodology in practice.

Not Just a Summer Drink

On a scorching summer day, nothing is more refreshing than a nice, cold bottle of iced tea. But what about the wintertime? How can a Business Unit that sells such summer staples like Nestea® also boost sales during the colder months and gain an edge on competing companies such as Lipton, the leader in the industry? 

Nestea’s traditional approach of identifying market trends to develop new products was not generating enough revenue. Moreover, non-compete restrictions from a joint venture of their parent company, Coca-Cola/Nestle, put further pressure on Nestea® to steer clear of soft drinks and hot beverages. Thus, the Nestea® brand team needed to develop a new product that was unique in their own domain. They called in SIT to help innovate under these constraints.

During the process, we applied our attribute dependency tool, which creates and dissolves dependencies between variables of a product, SIT was able to help Nestea reevaluate the relationship between changing seasons and beverages offered. Nestea’s® team challenged the expectation that iced tea is only for the summer and launched a line of iced tea for the winter. Applying their existing strength in flavor innovation to ensure the development of a unique and unexpected product, they landed on a concept that would accompany consumers’ winter drinking habits: a bottled tea that would be even more appealing when consumed at room temperature or when heated (as opposed to being cooled). Here, the industry’s fixedness, i.e. bottled tea is served cold (and is called “iced tea!”) was shattered and replaced with a dynamic, interesting alternative that created a whole new “ready-to-drink tea” product line. The pilot product, Snowy Orange, sold-out within the first week of launch in Germany. The following winter, the product was introduced into additional markets and this expanded “limited edition” sold out before the end of January. 

 It is now an annual staple in their product range throughout Europe, accounting for 10% growth in annual sales.

Achieve Naturally Soft & Radiant Skin

As any beauty consumer will tell you, diligent skincare is the key to radiant confidence and glowing skin. AHAVA Laboratories is a world leader in mineral-based cosmetics: their unique formulas, made of elements found only in the Dead Sea, are the foundation of millions of skincare routines. In a two-year partnership with SIT, AHAVA sought to further their enterprise by developing new products. Even though AHAVA had the power of the Dead Sea on their side, in a market saturated with hundreds of different creams and washes—all claiming one secret ingredient or another—AHAVA needed to create products with a different “wow” factor. 

One product concept came from our task unification tool —a way to assign an additional task to an existing resource. Together, we discovered a way to use the body’s own moisture to dissolve active ingredients in the product upon application to the skin. Usually, this process is achieved by adding water during the manufacturing process. However, using SIT’s creative process led to the invention of the Gentle Body Exfoliator, which requires only the body’s natural moisture. Because the Gentle Body Exfoliator is untreated, it has the additional benefit of a rough texture when applied, which removes dead skin cells. As the product interacts with the body’s own moisture, it dissolves into the skin, nourishing it with Dead Sea minerals. Naturally soft, smooth, and radiant skin has never been achieved like this before.

Which Scents Define Your Home?

We’re all familiar with the Febreze brand, providing a “Breath of Fresh Air” in our homes. But until the work with SIT, Febreze existed only in P&G’s Fabric Care category, removing odors from couches, armchairs, and carpets. Air Care was dominated by strong competitors: Glade (SC Johnson) with a whopping 55% market share, Wizard (Reckitt-Benckiser), and Renuzit (Dial). However, with category profit margins high, and clear right-of-entry into this adjacency, Procter & Gamble had to find a way in. They knew that only a truly different product would stand a chance of stealing any significant market share.

SIT was called in to help leverage P&G’s unparalleled expertise in scent-development (perfumery), while borrowing from Febreze’s brand equity, to identify a concept for a game-changer in the Air Care space. Applying our Multiplication tool, which adds an additional component of a product and then alters it in some way, we imagined a wall plug-in with 2 vials: one with Febreze technology + scent A; the other with Febreze technology + scent B. A novel idea emerged; if there were two separate tanks to hold the perfume, the device could alternate pulsing between scents. This would answer a consumer need that everyone had been aware of, but no competitor could figure out a solution for. The technical term is “habituation”, but we all know it as the experience when you enter a room with a distinct scent (or, more commonly, odor) and several minutes later you no longer notice it until you leave and reenter. The market had been unhappy (but forgiving) of the fact that they were wasting their money on a room freshener that evaporated perfume all the time, but they only benefited from for a couple of minutes each time they entered the room. P&G had solved this through the multiplication concept – every few minutes, the scent changed from one vial to the next – alternating between two pleasant scents and avoiding the customer’s sensory habituation. In classic P&G marketing genius, they sub-branded this disruptive innovation Febreze “NOTICEables” and in less than 4 years after launch, had garnished more than 25% market share. NOTICEables has become the standard for plug-ins, so P&G rebranded it in 2020 as simply Febreze Plugs

Turning Constraints into Advantages

 

Through the stories of Nestea, AHAVA, and Febreze, we see three examples of successful innovation that not only changed the game but disrupted their sectors. Instead of brainstorming or following market trends, the SIT methodology converted the companies’ constraints into advantages, innovating new solutions, and unlocking latent consumer needs in the process.

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