Two posts came across the ol’ reader this week that both make convincing arguments for where innovation has to happen in order to continually propel an organization forward and ideally, force an industry to evolve.
James Surowiecki writes about how Toyota has been so successful because of the way they infuse innovation into their process (Thanks, Victor!). A little at a time. Every day. Relentlessly.
…if Toyota doesn’t look like an innovative company it’s only because our definition of innovation—cool new products and technological breakthroughs, by Steve Jobs-like visionaries—is far too narrow. Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have focussed on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any less powerful.
Fake Steve Jobs (whatever), on the other hand, makes practically the opposite argument in this piece when he examines whether Dell will ever be able to bounce back because their innovation was focused on the process and not on building world-changing products:
What people overlook is that the advantages that allowed Dell to prosper for about a decade were all fleeting advantages. Dell was for a while an innovative company, but its innovations did not involve product design. They involved manufacturing and distribution efficiencies.
My instinct is that it depends entirely on your industry + market + audience. For really high ticket items that people will own for years, focusing on innovations in the process seems to make the most sense. For consumer goods that many replace every 6-12 months, the product really has to shine and evolve at a much faster rate.
Thoughts?
Perhaps Dell’s innovations were enough, but they didn’t keep improving as Toyota does?
And, notice that Toyota does do some great design. The Prius is a hot product, as are their pickup trucks. And their concept cars are some of the most inventive in the industry. Like the librarian’s lingerie, Toyota is secretly very sexy.
Dell participated in the race to the bottom, to be the cheapest and most efficient to allow it to run on the thinnest of margins - or no margins at all instead making money on the interest of delayed payments to suppliers - and they won. Unfortunately the rate of return on any further efficiency increases would be incredibly low so further marching on with their innovation in the supply chain would yield, I am guess, more loss.