Disciplines of innovation and Elevator Pitch

There are five disciplines of innovation such as:
1. Important customer and market need
2. Value creation
3. Innovation champions
4. Innovation teams
5. Organization alignment.

Some business ideas come from a careful analysis of market trends and consumer needs, and other come from serendity (ideas that come out of blue). If you are interested in starting a business, but do not know what product or services you might sell, exploring these ways of getting business ideas will help you to choose.
• Examine your own skill set for business ideas.
• Keep up with current event and be ready to take advantage of business opportunities.
• Invent a new product or services.
• Add value to an existing product.
• Investigate other markets.
• Improve an existing product or service.
• Get on the bandwagon.

Have you think that someday you will be in an elevator with Donald Trump? What will you do? Smile? Keep quite? Or just pretend you did not know him? To be a successful entrepreneur, you should have the skills and have a good elevator pitch. The question is what is an elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch is a short verbal introduction that explains what your business does and how it benefits your customer. This pitch is crafted and delivered to pique curiosity in the customer's mind. We can briefly describe our company, product or our individual skills. For instance, we can give an interesting tidbit about our company's history or share a statistic about our product's market success. We also can explain the market to which we are selling. Try to use two sentences or less and highlight who the group is, what industry, and what percentage of the market it represents. If we are selling your own skills, briefly discuss the market we have targeted in the past or would like to target in the future. Detail who or what is our competition. Knowing our competition will help prepare to defend our product, company or skills. And yet, describe our competitive advantage. What is it that sets you, your company or your product apart from all the rest? Last but not least, end with a request. Would you like a business card, a phone number or an appointment for a future discussion? Be sure to make your request and set your follow-up.

Sources of innovation

Still remember what is innovation? Innovation is a process of taking new ideas through to satisfied customer. This is the process by which entrepreneurs convert opportunities into marketable ideas. Innovation is about creating value and increasing efficiency, and therefore growing your business. Without innovation, new product, new services and new way of doing business would never emerge and most organization would be forever stuck doing the same things the same old ways.

There are a few sources of innovation such as:
1. Unexpected occurrences
2. Incongruities
3. Process needs
4. Industry and market changes
5. Demographic changes
6. Perceptual changes
7. Knowledge-based concepts.

Can you differentiate between creativity and innovation? Creativity is actually coming up with ideas while innovation is bringing ideas to life.

Stellagen Sdn. Bhd.

We had factory visit to Stellagen Sdn. Bhd. at Batu Caves. Stellagen Sdn Bhd is a biotechnology company with the primary objective of identifying, developing and commercializing technologies related to animal health, consumer health, microbiology and biochemical industries.

The main product of Stellagen is Stellarlac ™, a multi-strain probiotic for poultry. This product has undergone a 12 years research in UPM. This product is a feed supplement for poultry and it is meant to replace the antibiotics as growth promoter. It is known as probiotic. Probiotic refers to friendly bacteria that can improve a chicken’s intestinal bacteria balance and its digestion of chicken feed. It also helps restore the presence of beneficial bacteria, which strengthen the intestinal system against disease causing organism. Stellarlac ™ serves as an effective natural substitute for AGPs and also helps to reduce the amount of fat and cholesterol in chicken, leading to the development of safe and healthier chicken

Creative product

Creative process is the process of getting ideas, testing, and communicating the results. It is the process of relating, connecting and adding ideas to what is not previously thought of.

There are four steps in creative process which are :
1. Preparation
2. Incubation – taking time off where total process is turned over to the subconscious mind.
3. Illumination – where insights, possibilities and answers come.
4. Verification – taking the idea through a checklist of criteria for potential application, getting feedback, modifying and improving.

In this session, we were given a random word where we have to apply the features of this random word in our product to produce a new product. Our product is a phyto-mix yogurt and random word given is coal tar. The features of coal tar are black fluid and high viscosity. With this features, we have come out with four new products such as hair dye, yogurtion, anti-dandruff shampoo with yogurt based solution, and also yogurtamol.

The hair dye can be used for those with gray hair. It not only used to dye hair, but also to moisturizes hair. As we know, yogurt has many known health benefits and now it gain ground for beauty benefits. Yogurtion which is the lotion with yogurt based solution also good to moisturizes and smooth our skin.

One of the by-product of coal tar is paracetamol. We modified paracetamol by adding some yogurt to produce yogurtamol. This yogurtamol has sweet and sour taste that will make it more preferable by the consumer.

In the afternoon, we have cooking session where we cook ‘nasi beriani’ and also bread.

Conscious, Unconscious Mind and The Seven Hats.

What is the different between conscious and unconscious mind? Conscious mind is about analyzing, synthesizing and valuing while unconscious mind involved the depth mind which is the most important element in creative thinking. Unconscious mind is closely related to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). NLP consists of a set of powerful techniques for rapid and effective behavioral modification, and an operational philosophy to guide their use.

The balanced thinking approach involved seven hats thinking which are white hat, red hat, black hat, yellow hat, green hat, blue hat and grey hat. The white hat has to do with data and information. It also involved questions and problem. The red hat is about feelings, intuition, hunches, and emotions. In a meeting, people use white hat by disguising their emotions as logic. Red hat also gives people permission to put forward their feelings and intuitions, without apology and explanation.

The black hat is the ‘caution’ hat. Black hat prevents us from making mistakes, doing silly things and doing things which might be illegal. The yellow hat is for positive thinking. It looks for health but they must be logically based. Yellow hat thinking often requires a deliberate effort. The green hat is for creative thinking, new ideas and additional alternatives.

The blue hat suggests the next step in the thinking. It also can ask for summaries, conclusions and decisions. The last hat is the grey hat. It is a religious hat and the final screening process.

During this session, we were given a task where we have to find a problem and use seven hat thinking approach. Our groups have come out with a problem which is bringing back Malaysian professionals residing aboard (brain drain).

1. White hat
- Most of them do not want to come back because they already satisfy with their life there.

2. Red hat
- It will affect the emotion of Malaysia family and the government.

3. Yellow hat
- We will able to get new technology from other country and increase our productivity.

4. Black hat
- They will compete with local graduate for a job.

5. Blue hat
- We can ask them to sign a contract with government. The government also can give incentives such as tax and medical exemptions.

6. Green hat
- Give them high salary as their previous salary. We also can collaborate with multi-nasional company.

7. Grey hat
- We should loyal to our country and contribute to our nation and religion. As malay proverb, “Dimana bumi dipijak, di situ langit di junjung”.

As a conclusion, these seven hats allow us to get right away from argument in order to get more productive discussions.

Creativity and Innovation.

Creativity is the ability to discover new relationships, to look at subjects from new perspectives, and to form new combinations from two or more concepts that already in our mind. It is a blending of knowledge, imagination and evaluation.

Innovation is generally understood as the successful introduction of a new things or methods. Innovation is the embodiment, combination or synthesis of knowledge in valued new products.

The paradox in creative thinking :

CREATIVE IDEAS = NEW IDEAS =WRONG IDEAS
Hence, ALL NEW IDEAS = WRONG IDEAS =STRANGE IDEAS.

The End of Communication Module

On the last day of our communication module, we need to present our marketing proposal where we have to promote our product and achieve the maximum customer target in order to extend our business for international level.

As our group discuss before, we came out with new product which is Phyto-mix yogurt that has a great capacity in reducing diabetes. Our company mission is to enhance the well-being of human life globally and the environment through continuous researches and commercial innovations in producing high quality products.

Phyto-mix yogurt contains mixture of water extract of Momordica grosvenori, Lycium barbarum, Psidium guajava, and Garciana mangostana. All these plants or herbs have an anti diabetic and antioxidant properties which can decrease the Insulin Resistance (IR) level in patient’s body. No sugar needs to be added to the yogurt since the M. grosvenori has the original sweet properties.

Our group had prepared ourselves before we present our proposal. As En. Lah said, we have to major 3 components of presentation skills to become a successful presenter. The 3 components are the strategy, substance and style. We had plan ahead for the event and positioning ourselves to take advantage of all the possible opportunities. We also dress ourselves well as we were taught in grooming class by Madam Leilanie. She once said that simple is better.

Last but not least, I would like to thanks to all trainers that give me a lot of knowledges and experiences. This module was great and very interesting. I have built up my confidence level much better than before I came to this programmed.