Dyson

INTRODUCTION

With the aim to explore a range of Innovation Management concepts, we are going to look more precisely to a study case: Dyson, Hoover and the bagless vacuum cleaner.

James Dyson is a man who likes to make things work better. With his research team he has developed products that have achieved sales of over $10 billion worldwide.

James Dyson's first product, the Sea Truck, was launched in 1970 while he was studying at the Royal College of Art in London. A few years later came the award-winning Ballbarrow - instead of a wheel it had a ball which stopped it sinking into soft ground. Then there was the Wheelboat and the Trolleyball. Even the integral hose, seen on most upright vacuum cleaners, is a Dyson invention.

In 1978, while vacuuming his home, James Dyson realized his bag vacuum cleaner was constantly losing suction power. He noticed how dust quickly clogged the pores of the bag and blocked the airflow, so that suction dropped rapidly. He set to work to solve this problem. 5 years and 5,127 prototypes later, the world's first cyclonic bagless vacuum cleaner arrived.

We will start with some thinking about how not to dismiss exciting technology for senior managers, continue on the protection of intellectual property, and finish with some explanations about Hoover’s refusal to work with Dyson.

Part 1

How can businesses try to ensure that their senior managers do not dismiss exciting technology, and with it potentially profitable business?

New business development managers have to be able to detect exciting technologies. A good manager does not have to miss this business opportunity that could be developed into successful product. It is part of the New Development Product process and is also called the Opportunity Identification.

These new ideas can come from different sources like existing products, individuals, brainstorming and synectics, senior and top management, customers and vendors, unexploited patents, and technology.

Senior and top managers have to put in place a favourable environment for innovation to flourish, and then be ready to detect opportunities coming from this environment. This opportunity that senior managers will want to develop into a product will not be dismiss thanks to their decision-making skills. In fact, we can say that not miss an opportunity is resumed in taking into account the right one.

Decision-making skills are a must for any managers, and making the right decision is essential. The process of decision-making is very important for effective management, and it must be informed by expert knowledge and experience. Usually, everyone gets blamed for making mistakes, but not for missing opportunities. And here is the difference with senior managers: businesses have to be sure that senior managers don’t make mistakes like every other employee, but as well don’t miss opportunities which could be profitable for the business.

This process can be seen as an evaluation process as well, and is called the screening. Here managers will have to think about a few questions to evaluate the importance of the idea. These questions are:

- Do we have the necessary commercial knowledge and experience?

- Do we have the technical know-how to develop the idea further?

- Would such a product be suitable for our business?

- Are we sure there will be sufficient demand?

After theses questions which help to select the successful ideas and drop the other ones, a few more things can be done to be sure to recognise an exciting technology. Analysed the idea, to see if it is realistic in terms of product’s implementation, and don’t reject the idea of a new product just because you believe it wouldn’t work. In fact, this is really the case of Hoover and Electrolux (cf: part 3), which didn’t believe in Dyson’s product.

Senior managers can then do market research for example, to get a valuable market analysis to help in the decision process.

Different types of screening can then be achieved:

- customers screening (or concept testing), but it is hard to get objectives results as customers have difficulties to react to a product without a tryout.

- technical screening or testing, permits an extensive analysis with for example an independent consultant

- final screening, with the use of scoring models

- business analysis, with a projection of the product in terms of financial reviews and budgets, which will highlight potential problem not seen yet.

This screening process will helps senior managers to make the right decision about a business opportunity. Another way of deciding whether or not the idea worth it, is to go through three statements:

- the idea must deliver value, because between several ideas a good one will deliver better aspects concerning for example convenience, price or choice. Here the senior managers need to have “value sensitivity”

- the idea must be actual, because it needs to be likely to happen, an idea realistic and actual

- the idea must be practical, because it has to suit the organisation in terms of costs, legality, resources, etc.

To get the best from an idea, senior managers really have to analyse a lot of information, look at them before to leap, think before they act, and aim to hit three points: time, money and efficiency. They have to cut the first one, save the second one, and increase the third one.

More concretely, they are other ways to not dismiss technologies and with it potentially profitable business.

For example, every year in the world, they are a lot of technology events which are real sources of data, information. We can cite the famous Detroit auto show, the Apple show or the Tokyo robots show. In a lot of company, people are in charge of attending to these different events according to kinds of activities, with a view to bring back many ideas in their own Research and Development team to create new projects.

Then, companies can use Competitive Intelligence which is both a process and