Monday, June 14, 2010

The 5P’s of the Purpose Centric Innovation

While there are many definitions available for Innovation - in its crux, innovation is all about strategic change. Depending upon the drivers that necessitate the strategic change, innovation can take three different paths - user centric, vision centric and purpose centric. While “user-centric” innovation is often driven by the unmet needs of the key stakeholders within (or outside) of your organization, “vision-centric” innovation is driven by the design thinking talents of the visionary innovators within your organization. On the other hand, “purpose centric” innovation is a hybrid path – it is vision centric innovation in steroids – as it is envisioned by the purpose minded visionaries of your organization, yet driven by the people (primarily social) and planet (primarily environment) needs. Nevertheless, regardless of the drivers that necessitate the innovation, as a first step, you must choose the right innovation process mix among “user-centric”, “vision-centric” and “purpose centric” paths - depending upon the weight factor you assign to the innovation drivers of your organization.

Like any other concept, “purpose centric” innovations are guided by five purpose principles or the “5P’s” (Purpose Model, Purpose Platforms, Purpose Portfolios, Purpose Pipeline and Purpose brands) to help you assign the right weight factors to the purpose drivers (people, planet etc) to arrive at the right innovation process mix that is suitable for your organization.

- First and foremost, is the Purpose model – Purpose models, as I had outlined earlier, are the revolutionary game changing business models that not only reinvent the firm from business model innovation standpoint, but also mutate the DNA of the brand (and the firm) at the nucleus level from top to bottom with an externality mindset.

- The next principle is focusing on building “Purpose Platforms”, the true enablers of the purpose models. Purpose platforms go beyond the traditional value chain/product boundaries and provide the flexible foundational systems to change the “relevance, access and value” characteristics of the products and services without changing the foundational platform design.

- The third principle is the consumer focused “Purpose Portfolios” that link product experiences to the corresponding consumer segment portfolios within the context of the overall purpose models, yet without impacting the global brand image and brand integrity.

- The fourth principle is the “Purpose Pipeline” - those forward looking ideas within the context of the purpose models that help the corporation to constantly change the product and purpose model characteristics (yet without changing the platform design) in alignment with the “Purpose platform” principle.

- Last, but not least, the fifth principle is the experience based “purpose brands” mindset providing the value focused “product experiences” without compromising the quality and safety – i.e. the “low cost, but, not low quality” principle.

Together, these five principles, not only help you to change the purpose rules of the game within your industry vertical, but also give you the impetus to instill the purpose driven innovation culture within the DNA of your organization. The question is - are you ready for the challenge? The sooner you embrace the purpose driven strategic mindset, the better strategic decisions you will make to move your corporation from good to great.

Bottom line: Embedding this type of purpose centric culture within the DNA of your organization, makes your organization the “Purpose beacon” of your industry vertical. In addition, making regular refinement of the Purpose agenda using the best in class disruptive/reverse innovation methodologies, will definitely make your organization the “Purpose driven innovation paradise” you are dreaming for.

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