inn vation
“Innovation does not stop during slowdowns .. Innovation investment in a recession generated a 24% return on capital with only 0.6% coming from cost-cutting. Source: Profit Impact of Market Study
.. Nor should you. Innovation attracts customers. We are not wavering.” — Arvind Sodhani, President of Intel Capital
Still, innovation success is elusive for many companies While every company is different, experience suggests that many face similar innovation challenges. Here are just some of those issues.
Need to make the strategy more relevant
Need new and improved offerings for growth
Need to make the company more innovative
Customers no longer find our company or our brand relevant.
We have good ideas but we’re having trouble executing on them.
We have talented employees but we’re not effectively engaging them to innovate.
Our people don’t understand or feel passionate about our strategy.
We need to identify new segments, markets, or growth opportunities.
Our strategy is decaying but we don’t know how to transform it.
We don’t have enough insights to drive breakthrough opportunities.
We need to drive innovation and creative thinking into our strategy.
Our pipeline of new offerings and ideas is dry.
We’re so caught up in execution mode that we don’t have time to innovate. We lack the culture and capabilities required to successfully innovate. Our customer experience is tired and needs to be energized.
Ask yourself: What’s your innovation challenge?
So, how do you
innovate?
Innovation requires a different way of thinking
Look at more stuff. Think about it harder. Look At More Stuff. Think About It Harder. is our process of using targeted experiences to build an inventory of observations and insights.
It’s how we harness creative thinking to transform those observations and insights into actionable ideas and concepts for your business.
Innovation requires a holistic perspective
Strategy & Leadership
Products, Services, & Experiences
Organizational Capabilities & Culture
Our holistic view of inspiration Strategy & Leadership
Products, Services,
Capabilities & Culture
Creating and executing
& Experiences
Building an innovation
innovative growth strategies
Identifying and acting on new
capability by developing
and engaging leaders and
products, services, business
the required skills, culture,
the overall organization to
models, experiences, and
leadership, metrics, processes,
understand, believe, and live
reenergized brands to drive
and tools to sustain innovation
them.
growth.
over time.
Innovation requires a passion for the possibility of change
World
Business
People
The radiant model of inspiration Unlocking the potential of innovation requires a commitment to changing people, business, and the world — passion for engaging people as human beings, passion for breaking business boundaries, and passion for change that matters.
We call this...
Inspiration. Realized.
sm
We inspire people and organizations to discover and realize new paths to growth and transformation.
Interested & Interesting
Science & Art. Art & Science
We’re genuinely curious, slightly irreverent, and appropriately disruptive. Our way and our work are intertwined.
We weave analytical and creative thinking together to develop inspired and actionable ideas.
Results, Not Just Recommendations
Innovation Made Personal
We go beyond recommendations by seeing ideas through to implementation and impact. The stories of how we’ve created material results for our clients speak for themselves.
Sustainable innovation requires harnessing people’s heads and hearts. We design interactions and experiences that make the engagement more personal and meaningful.
We do this by using an
iterative, collaborative approach Aspire
Determining where we are and where we want to go by exploring strategic objectives and outlining the options forward.
Inspire
Finding inspirations for ideas through experiences and observations, and generating as many ideas as possible.
Analyze
Cre
Analyzing and synthesizing to bring qualified opportunities to life, both visually and verbally.
eate
We integrate creative thinking with analytical rigor throughout the innovation process. Our diverse employee base brings a mix of agency, operational, and consulting expertise to ensure that your organization will benefit from a balance of right and left brain thinking.
Synthesize
Evaluate
Testing and learning to iterate on and evaluate the opportunities, prioritizing those that will produce the most favorable outcomes.
Realize
Partnering with you to answer tactical questions, define action steps, and realize the opportunity.
We infuse inspiration throughout the entire process The 6 sources of inspiration 1
2
3
Company Capabilities
Brand DNA
Company Attic
What unique assets, skills, or technologies can we repurpose or harness?
Brand perceptions and key associations.
The experiences and collective knowhow of the industry and organization.
Successful innovators transform company competencies and resources into competitive advantage.
Successful innovators use brand to guide and inspire innovation opportunities and apply innovation to stretch and inspire the brand strategy.
Successful innovators build on experience and knowledge, but they aren’t afraid to overturn or challenge the commonly held paradigms of their company or industry.
Inspiration for innovation is derived from diverse sources. Customer insight is key, but helpful perspectives come from an array of internal and external sources. We help companies harness new and different sources of inspiration to make the ideation process more effective.
4
5
6
Industry & Trend Analysis
Out of Context
Customer Insight
Competitive and market trends that shape the future.
Lessons derived from customer behavior outside the category.
Customer experiences, delights, frustrations, and unmet needs.
Successful innovators possess the foresight required to anticipate changing trends, behaviors, and industry dynamics.
Successful innovators always look to discover beyond the category for potential inspiration.
Successful innovators walk in their customers’ shoes to uncover unmet or unarticulated needs.
We’ve helped diverse com
inspiration to r Looking to expand its frame of reference and become a “category-killing lifestyle brand,” SCI FI faced a limited association with its name. Through brainstorming, analytical problem solving, and market research, we helped SCI FI connect to a youthful, more upscale customer, enabling the brand to be redefined as a new type of entertainment company. As a result, they’re exploring three major growth areas: digitalgaming, Digisodes, and the creation of “SCI FI Anime,” which provide the opportunity for brand growth and differentiation.
Faced with increasing competition, Harrah’s flagship casino brand, Caesars, was experiencing declining sales and an eroding image. Prophet worked with the team to develop innovative, category-defining offers and operational improvements. Through in-depth research we defined what was most important to customers when it came to the overall experience, and more importantly, how Harrah’s weighed in against its competitors. We prioritized those areas and leveraged the insights to develop new offers. Several have been launched, including the state-of-the-art spa, Qua Baths & Spa, which was recognized in the Robb Report and made Spa Magazine’s Top 10 during its first year in operation. The new offers have generated a surplus of traffic, sales, and improvements in guest satisfaction scores.
mpanies convert
results
Faced with ever-growing competition and diminished differentiation, United recognized the need to shift its strategy from being simply an airline to a customer-driven, services company. Through targeted ideation sessions and customer research, Prophet prioritized, evaluated, and designed customer experience improvements that would enable United to better serve their most profitable customers. We tested and applied enhancements to the overall experience, such as a new premium lobby and boarding process, and improved seats for First and Business Class International passengers. The initiative also included internal training, corporate-wide business education, service training, and new leadership requirements.
Maidenform faced a rapidly changing market filled with shorter product lifecycles and shifts in shopping trends. They wanted to renew the brand and become relevant again — this time to a broader audience. Customer research found that women couldn’t find a bra that met their need for comfort and style. Prophet helped Maidenform develop a three-year growth plan to improve the go-to-market strategy, including the development of a new product line. The new strategy helped contribute to Maidenform’s turnaround. The company went from the verge of bankruptcy to a successful IPO and 12% growth over the past five years. Maidenform also launched the One Fabulous Fit Bra, which quickly became the topselling bra in America.
Why
Prophet? Prophet ensures your best ideas — no matter how big or small — make it to market. We help you nurture a culture of creativity and curiosity. One where employees are inspired and engaged in the innovation process. Where openness to new ideas from any number of sources — your network of customers, partners, even competitors — is the rule. Where fear of failure is replaced by a willingness to embrace both risk and opportunity. Let us help you along the path to inspired, sustainable growth.
We have a successful track record of helping clients in all areas of innovation: strategy, growth opportunities, and organizational capabilities.
Prophet is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Chicago, Hamburg, London, Madrid, New York, Richmond, Tokyo, and Zurich.
Chicago
Madrid
San Francisco
180 N. Stetson Suite 4600 Chicago, IL 60601 USA +1 312 879 1930 tel +1 312 879 1940 fax Contact: Scott Davis
C/ Diego de Le贸n 47 28006 Madrid Spain +34 91 8388540 tel +34 91 8388549 fax Contact: Joseph Gelman
150 Spear Street Suite 1500 San Francisco, CA 94105 USA +1 415 677 0909 tel +1 415 677 9020 fax Contact: Michael Dunn
Hamburg
New York
Tokyo
Poststrasse 33 20354 Hamburg Germany +49 40 350 85 948 tel +49 40 350 85 80 fax Contact: Roland Bernhard
230 Park Avenue Suite 2829 New York, NY 10169 USA +1 212 244 1116 tel +1 212 244 1117 fax Contact: Andrew Pierce
c/o Dentsu, Inc. 1-8-1, Higashi-shimbashi, Minato-ku Tokyo, 105-7001 Japan +81 3 6216 8386 tel +81 3 6217 5821 fax Contact: Tetsuji Hirose
London
Richmond
Zurich
55 Drury Lane London WC2B 5SQ United Kingdom +44 0 20 7836 5885 tel +44 207 420 3700 fax Contact:Vanessa Cohen
1801 East Cary Street Suite 200 Richmond,VA 23223 USA +1 804 644 2200 tel +1 804 775 2289 fax Contact: Andy Stefanovich
Bahnhofstrasse 52 8001 Z眉rich Switzerland +41 44 214 64 63 tel +41 44 214 65 19 fax Contact: Roland Bernhard
prophet.com
prophet.com