In a recent Management Issues article  here Max McKeowan gives examples of comnpanies constantly innovating or reinventing its products.

Toyota says that everyone's job is to "Improve 1000 things by 1% continuously".  Apple works to make sure that its own products obsolete its current range rather than be obsoleted by its competitors. So this is product innovation.

So why is there not the same focus on process innovation? The approach of constantly striving to improve the way people do things. To be fanatical about driving our non-value added activities. But this needs to be done in a controlled, managed and governed manner or a company will fall foul of regulatory compliance.

At Nimbus (www.nimbuscontrol.com) this is our driving passion. Our software is the ‘operations manual’ helps companies in every industry constantly improve.

The results are staggering. Carphone Warehouse can see an additional £55m of revenue from the 800+ UK stores purely by getting standardised, consistent information to staff on all the core activities in a store.  Watch the video

Lockheed Martin improved its win rate from 30% to 100% when bidding for big systems implementation projects.

Why? Because most projects use MS Powerpoint or Visio and whilst you can visualise some improvements, you can make them stick. “Sustainable improvement” is the goal.

This is discussed in my book Common Approach, Uncommon Results.  Read the book summary at www.ideas-warehouse.com  and if you like it I’ll send you a free copy.