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How about having a network of highly creative people, exclusively sharing with you innovative perspectives, free of charge? We can train you to build one, or do it for you.

 

General introduction

Innovation is a substantial change, renovation is a minor change, and invention is the creation of something from scratch.

The TINO innovation program generates substantially more perspectives regarding possible changes. It also creates a highly valuable human network, whose members will gladly share innovative observations and actionable ideas.

You can read more about the innovation program and other solutions at the HUMINT Solutions blog.

                                                                             A Case Study

A company and an overview of its market

A company, one of the largest in a highly regulated market, has a few major rivals with a similar portfolio of products and services.

All the competitors use similar strategies with subtle differences - mainly between two main courses, market share and profitability.

The company has an impressive marketing team, including a marketing research unit which regularly provides comprehensive analysis, assisted by a cutting edge data tools, and external research consultancies.

Business challenges

The challenge is adding innovative (and hopefully exclusive) actionable insights, about the following:

• Winning strategy – adding external perspectives which challenge common market assumptions
• New products – identifying new product possibilities or modifying existing ones
• Innovative sale arguments – given the similarity between competitors, in both portfolio and sales processes, generating new sales arguments is crucial for the company to stand out

Here's how the TINO program helped:

1^st stage - allocating resources

VP of marketing was appointed as program sponsor; the head of the marketing research team was appointed part time (1/3) as a company corporate TINO, four account managers were appointed as part time (1/4) geographic TINO.

2^nd stage – generating BQs and TIKOs profiles

TINO experts worked with the program's sponsor one-on-one. First, using web-based tools like the 8WH Matrix to transform program objectives into a set of business questions. Second, using the TIKOs FINDER (also web-based), the TINO experts and the sponsor identified initial TIKOs profiles.

3^rd stage – short theoretical training

The corporate and regional TINOs had participated in a TINO workshop (usually lasting 1-2 days). It focused on managing TIKOs networks, meeting management, and undocumented information analysis, integration, validation and reporting. 

4^th stage - four modules of on-the-job training (OJT)

• Time & resources – the OJT lasted four months, during which each geographical internal TINO conducted 2-4 interviews per week. These were mostly conducted with people they already planned to meet and fit previously identified TIKO profile. Overload was therefore minimal.
• Two HUMINT TINO experts focused mainly on the external business environment, conducting 2-3 interviews per week.
• Corporate TINO were trained, guided and assisted in integrating, analyzing, validating and reporting. Additionally they gradually consolidated relevant TIKOs into the company's TIKOs network.

Deliveries summary

Challenges	Deliverables highlights
Winning strategy	All competitors have been using a similar product-oriented strategy Example: TIKOs indicated an astonishing unknown fact. All players have based their strategy on false assumptions regarding their perception by the other competitors. TIKOs also provided innovative practical ideas that were translated into a new client-oriented strategy
Identifying new product possibilities or modifying existing ones	Impressive set of innovative ideas both regarding known products that either have been neglected or new products that have been resulted by the new suggested client oriented strategy In parallel valuable suggestions (and critiques) have been collected regarding wide range of needed changes in business processes (marketing, sales, HR, IT and more)
Innovative sales arguments	TIKOs provided an interesting pros-and-cons comparison of the company's sales arguments and those of its competitors A list of new sales arguments was composed, combined with ideas on how to effectively  modify current ones Many of the new sales arguments actually transformed weaknesses into opportunities Example: we found that one competitor used its considerably faster back office process as a winning argument. The company sales people tried to attract the same clients by offering a better price. The TIKOs produced a successful new sales argument. Potential clients were shown how waiting longer could be to their benefit because of the meticulous back office services offered, which significantly reduced the number of mistakes and rework getting the order right

Correction through evaluation

Every two weeks, a Gap Meeting was conducted. The company sponsor was updated by the corporate TINOs and HUMINT TINO experts about:

• The raw insights which have been gathered
• The processed ideas
• The actionable innovative ideas, with recommendations for implementation

 

The sponsor tuned-up and prioritized the input, and often added more questions. Next, business questions, the interviews program, and other components were adjusted

 

Return on Investment

 

Compared to any traditional service, the TINO Innovation program generates great short term and long term returns:

 

Cost-benefits	TINO	Other solutions
Paying for information	No TIKO was paid	Participants are paid (e.g. focus groups)
Range of perspectives	Wide, evolving	Narrow, ad-hoc
Exclusive ideas	Many – most are run by the company	Few – most are run by the providers
Building internal innovation process	Designed to provide it!	Conflict of interests with their innovation experts
Leaking of confidential strategic information	Very low , eventually zero	High
Modularity	TIKOs networks are generic human information solutions, and can be used for a wide range of  business domains (e.g. business development, cost reduction and many others), with little modification	None

For more information, please contact us at  info[@]humints[.]com