10/14/2013
Protecting technology investments with design and patent applications is a 4 step process. It all starts with Portfolio Alignment, step 1; "What innovation investments are we working on now, and why?" By understanding what you have in your innovation pipeline and by aligning those innovations with consumers’ expectations, will set you far ahead of your competitors. Trim innovations that are not interesting and full throttle innovations which are! Only after you are completely aware of where you are now, move onto step 2, Portfolio Development (PD). Step 2, done properly, aligns your core competencies with consumer unmet needs and helps to focus your portfolio plans for the future. PD, at a minimum should develop two types of product portfolios, 1) Sustainable Innovation – defined as incremental innovation required to maintain and/or achieve market leadership and 2) Disruptive Innovation – defined as step-change improvement in product or service performance. Balancing innovations between a sustainable and a disruptive portfolio will allow you to leverage short-term quick hit innovations with long-term portfolio needs, satisfying current customers and capturing new interested customers. Step 3, Portfolio Protection, is specifically designed for engineers to dive deep into technology development and protect technology investments with design and patent applications. This is where engineers resolve tough consumer problems. Portfolio protection is specifically designed to encourage engineers to play, dream and think. At the end of a portfolio protection workshop, your engineers will have the best solutions addressing consumer problems with first draft patent applications. Protecting your technology investments with design and patent applications helps to delay your competitors from catching up and allows you time to design the best cost effective solution. Step 4 is Culture Development. Innovation is a continuum not an event. How many times have you had an innovation event where you innovated on demand? By developing a culture where innovation can occur anytime, anywhere and with anyone allows your organization the time required to get past the low hanging fruit and dive deeper into developing the best consumer solutions. Following each step is critical to the success of maintaining a captive consumer audience.
