3 Golden Rules of Innovation - My Experience

Hello Friends,


The market is changing frantically, making it more aligned to the changing needs of the customers.

But the true thing is there is a bigger picture which is created due to percolating mentality of the higher management which conceives the innovation. The term "innovation" is changing in recent days and its mainly due to the remorse mentality and pale focus towards the new trends.

Now the million dollar question rises that is innovation is heading towards the right direction or its just a term which is still in the process of understanding?

The answer lies in the attitude of the people. It applies to all the people in the pyramid right from the bottom to the top. Every member should be actively involved in the creation of the new innovative business process or service implementation.

Journey from Deception to Real Innovation:

I might sound weird but this is what I have faced in my 2.5+ years of experience in Telecom Innovation Lab of Tata Consultancy Service. When there is any kind of incubation of idea, there is always some kind of inconsistency arises between the business alignment and the success of the innovation. People often makes fun of you by saying that innovation is too big thing for the freshers like you.

It made me wonder that why people cultivate such kind of mentality. People usually thinks that innovation is the duty of scientists or PhD people. If you do not have that knowledge, you are not fit to innovate the idea or create new things. 

By this thoughts, you are blocking the process of innovation and creating a mindset among the fresh minds to follow linear thinking rather than trying for unconventional approach towards the problem. The aspect of lateral thinking comes to a complete standstill and your mind gets rusted with the routine work.

Everyone says that to stay fit, you need to do exercise. But the same thing applies to your brain. We never try to question things, and by any means, try to question the process, are made fun by our friends. They often says that you are not Newton or Einstein that you will discover things.

I just want to say them one thing. NO, I am not a scientist but I have every right to use my knowledge which I have gained over these years and question the existing process. Sometimes, a stupid thought can create new innovative business model. You just need to think out of the box.

Measuring Innovation:

The second problem which I have faced is to quantify innovation. Guys, wake up. You need to understand that there in never a timeline for innovation. You just cannot put a gun of some one's head and make sure that there is innovative idea in return. You just cannot get things back in a specific time frame. You need patience to get the desired results. This lead to one complicated theory. The characters include higher management who funds the innovation and the people  who has the duty to find new things and to innovate.

Fostering innovation is a difficult process and it becomes complicated when external factors like business model creation comes into picture. You just cannot find a business model on every innovation. Its the first step to improve the process. Once the process significantly improves, there will be visible amount of profit for the company.

Avoid Vicious Circle in Ideation:

This is also one of the bigger aspect of ideation procedure. People who are amateur or highly experts tend to involve so much into the process that they tend to repeat the mistakes again and again. They try to evolve the idea on the same lines without thinking anything new. 

The only way to avoid this, is to just get a break and try to read about other's innovative ideas and try to mould your thoughts on their aspects. You can ask question to yourself for the success of various ideas and their evolution. This will give you a way to think beyond your scope and you will improve significantly.

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I would like to say one more thing. 

No One Is Born Brilliant. Its The Knowledge Which Gives You Power To Think "Out Of The Box". Use It Wisely.

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Hardik Upadhyay

© Techbiz Research

Twitter - @HardikUpadhyay

Facebook - Hardik Upadhyay

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3 Mistakes of Google's Life - Part 2

Hello Friends,

Hope that you liked the previous part of the Google's Mistake. Now let me take you to the last product which was a disappointment for Google.

3. Google Buzz:

Google Buzz was launched in Feb 2010. It was not a great launch but still it created a lot of buzz around when it was launched (Obviously, it was a google's product. So it has to be) But still, I feel that there is some amount of error which Google committed while launching the product in the market. Few reasons which I feel are as follows:

• Wrong Product Launch At Wrong Time:

I had faith in Google as it is known to launch the product range at correct time. If they want to do some more research, then they will put the product in "Beta" and just let the users test it through Google Labs. But this was not in the case of Google Buzz. They were in hurry to launch the new product and they were under immense pressure from the higher management to launch an assault against Facebook and Twitter. 

This made it clear that they will be facing lot of issues when they launch the product initially. This was a biggest drawback for Buzz.

• Privacy.....:

Google totally forgot one term while launching Google Buzz. PRIVACY....

You wont believe, it just picked up people from your mailing list and automatically followed them or made them follow you. So your privacy is totally F***ed up. They did not even gave a thought about it. Only thing was there in their mind is to make it compete with Facebook just within weeks of launch of product.

Due to this hasty decision, Google faced lawsuit. This was also a kind of setback for Google.

Sorry... Facebook was not created in one day!!!!!

• Gmail?? Wrong Place Boss!!!!:

Buzz was still into making. Google was wondering that the product is ready (Just a thought even though it was not. This usually happens when you develop a software) so what shall we do now? Which is the best way to launch? 

They were thinking of a best platform for this highly innovative product. So the second best product of Google was selected and used to launch their product (GMAIL). 

So one fine day, when everyone woke up, they found a new application next to their inbox and showing people whom they mailed and were in their group... WTF!!!  You should have asked me at least. Anyway, the public reviews were taken into consideration and few changes were done. But I guess the damage was done. No turning back for them.

• Google Profile - Prime Requirement: 

Lot of people will disagree with me if I say that creation of google profile was not a bad option. But believe me friends, there were a significant amount of people who hated to create google profile.

In fact, its very true, why should I create a profile to use some product which is linked to my mail. It already has my details. 

Google is known to connect different application by single id but still it was not able to fetch details from orkut, google chat, you tube or any other sites. May be they would have some other thought in mind. But sorry, I was not able to digest their requirement. So I guess, it was one of the mistake of Google Buzz business model.

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I hope you all like the review. Sorry, if I have been some what harsh on Google, but do not forget that Google has given this world lot of things which will not be easy for any other companies to recreate. And every business needs risks. Some give returns and some does not. But we should move on!!!!!

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 Hardik Upadhyay

© Techbiz Research

Twitter - @HardikUpadhyay

Facebook - Hardik Upadhyay

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3 Mistakes of Google's Life - Part 1

Hi Friends,

Google is one of the most innovative company I have ever seen. They start new services and generate new products which are unique and best in the market. 

The best part of Google is - They are never afraid to venture in new areas and they always redefine the word "Innovation". Google implement new business model in the unique way which is totally aligned to the customer requirements.

Best part of Google:

• They think from end user perspective.
• Google thinks about 5 years in advance. ( I am saying this because google recently got patent for location based advertisement. The application for the patent was filed in 2005. This shows that they think every service from future perspective.)

But one thing I should admit that they have come across a lot of failed business models and they are trying hard to come over it. The only thing that stops Google in achieving this is their failed business models in few of their products.

Two Products which I would like to discuss today in this blog.

       1. Google Phone - Nexus One

Google hyped about the phone in spring 2007. It took around one and a half year for Google to create a phone. Google launched nexus one on Jan 04 2010. It was a great time to launch smart phone. Smartphone market was booming and at the same time, android was also on the peak. But there was some problem in the business model which google approached to market their phone.

• Online Selling Only : Google took this approach to sell their phone online without using any kind of store. This was the major setback from the customer's perspective. There was a lukewarm response in the booking process. The reason is customer are much comfortable with computers and ipods, but when it comes to mobile, they want to touch and feel it before purchasing it.
• Lack of Marketing : This was another shot in the arm of Google. Google missed to advertise their phone. This was accepted but along with that, they missed the various channels of marketing. There was no viral marketing of the product before the launch which was a major setback.
• Initial Reviews: Google kept mum on the initial bad reviews of the phone. Instead of taking actions on improvements, they were just waiting for the user to accept without their assurance. This created more rave reviews and they slumped more in gathering market share.
• Technical Support and Customer Service: Google missed this thing by a great margin. They followed the website and online support in case of phone. F.A.Q support will not help in case of phone selling, Google should have understood it. But they did not know that phone selling needs good customer care support and other technical services. I guess Google should rethink their service and support approach if they want to improve.

There are lot of other reasons also, but if Google would have focused on these things, they would not have faced the shame.

I can only wish one thing. Google should learn from its past mistakes and should not repeat the thing when they launch Google Tablet or Google Chrome OS.

        2. Google Wave:

One more classic product from Google. It was one of the most hyped product from Google and it was creating lot of waves in the year 2009. It was the most awaited product from Google in 2009. People kept their fingers crossed for the launch of the product. But when the product launched, it was the disappointment.

People started wondering what is the product all about. It was no way related to their use and it was not able to meet their expectations.

Reasons for the failure of Google Wave:

• More Futuristic Thinking: When you are targeting a product to the whole world, you should think of billion people who lacks advanced computer knowledge like the people from Google Labs. :) Google thought of things which are far from normal Internet user's understanding. 
• Privacy Policy Analysis: The worst part of Google Wave was privacy policy. The wave created is always public and anyone can join anybody in the personal wave. Google should have learnt from the issues which were burning around facebook and twitter.
• Lack of Applications: Wave had very very limited amount of applications which restricted the user to try and analyze the wave as a product.
• Creating a requirement for the customer: Any product, it you want to market, there should be a way to market. To achieve this, there should be a need from the customer for that kind of product. Google did not analyzed the market and assumed things and launched the product. This was the setback for them.

Google is known to learn from its past mistakes but I guess they repeated the same thing in another product which was in pipeline.

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Thats all for this part friends, few of the other products which added feather to Google will be included in the next part.

Till then, Keep reading my blog.

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Hardik Upadhyay

© Techbiz Research

Twitter - @HardikUpadhyay

Facebook - Hardik Upadhyay

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Back And Rejuvenated

Hi Friends,

I have been out of regular blogging from a long time. But now onwards, I will be blogging regularly.

Lot of things changed in last few days. New products were launched, new business ventures were established, new telecom trends and new controversies were emerged.

I found one thing which did not change is the greed of mine to know new business trends and innovations throughout various technological dimensions.

I will be putting the trends and acute analysis on the on new and emerging business models. I will keep you posted with new happenings and buzz in the technological industry across the globe.

I would be promoting my blog and expect the readers to comment on the same if you like my article. Please do follow me and all your suggestions to improve the blog are welcome.

You can add me on facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/hardik.upadhyay

Also you can follow me on twitter - http://twitter.com/hardikupadhyay

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Hardik Upadhyay
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