Innovare deve diventare una disciplina, una pratica assistita da metodo e strumenti perché non resti prigioniera della casualità tipica del “genio”.

1. The Innovation Way® laboratories
for small and medium enterprises
XXIII ISPIM Conference
Barcelona, Spain
June 19th 2012

2. 2
Index
§ Quinn: who we are?
§ SMEs – Characteristics and innovation approach
§ Innovation Way® methodology
§ Results

3. 3
Quinn – Who we are?
QUINN operates on site intervention,
realises applied research projects and
provides education, in the following
fields:
q Organizational system engineering
q Integrated management system
supporting Health, Safety, Environment
and Quality (HSE&Q)
q Methods supporting innovation
introduction and diffusion into business
q Scouting and support of new
innovative businesses
q Intelligence Policies
q Efficiency and productivity analysis
www.consorzioquinn.it
Quinn is the University Consortium of Engineering for Quality and Innovation. It has been
founded in 1989, on the initiative of the University of Pisa (Italy) and with the support of some big
companies. Quinn’s mission is to promote quality and innovation culture within firms and for the
whole country. Quinn's activity is focused on fields where exclusive research produced by its
scientific partners, above all College of Engineering of University of Pisa, should be appreciated.

4. 4
SMEs – Characteristics and innovation approach
q Lack of a proper marketing approach: SMEs usually work in a demand pull state, in
which the customers themselves are in search for suppliers and they express
explicitly their requirements.
q Lack of managerial approach: decisions are based more on intuitions than on
business assessments or market researches.
q Difficulty to sustain high investments in marketing and technological researches
with economical returns on the long term, in order to produce disruptive
innovations that overturn the traditional business methods and practices.
q Adoption of Business Creativity approach: SMEs tend to produce innovations by the
rearrangements of the current resources, with some incremental improvements in
order to optimize needed investments and to enhance the economical benefits in
the short or medium term period.
How do SMEs usually face the innovation process?
What are the characteristics of SMEs that mainly block an innovation process?

5. 5
Innovation Way® Methodology
q Setting of the development strategy of the business and consequently to break
down and re-engineer the supply of goods/services;
q Aligning the vision of innovation from both technical and commercial point of
view;
q Increasing the personal capacity of participants to generate innovative and
effective ideas.
Innovation Way® Methodology has been proposed as a laboratory divided into four
workshops. The four stages are strictly interrelated, since innovation should be
managed as a process. However the four stages are not necessarily contiguous; each
one can be the starting point of the process; in the process not all the steps must be
necessarily performed.
The goals
What is it
The focus
Innovation Way® Methodology is based on a benefit oriented approach. This focus
on offered and expected benefits is due to their crucial role in defining an effective
value proposition and it represents a distinctive element.
Instruments
Innovation Way® Methodology is based on proven and well known
instruments properly scaled, refocused on the characteristics of medium
businesses and grouped together in a toolbox.

6. 6
Innovation Way® path
Analysis and re-
definition of the
business strategy
Redesign of the
product or of the
services
Redesign of the
offering mix on the
base of a benefit
oriented approach
Analysis of the user
experience and
collection of the
customers feedbacks
Workshop 1 Workshop 4
Workshop 2 Workshop 3
SOURCE OF THE INPUTS:
markets/customers
SOURCE OF THE INPUTS:
products/services/processes
FOCUS OF THE INSTRUMENTS
On the market On the product/service
Value Curve Scenario Based Design
Morphological Analysis Creativity Templates

7. 7
WS 1 WS 2
Problem “I can’t distinguish myself in the market”
“My commercial communication isn’t
convincing”
Requirement
To use creative abilities and techniques to
product development
To make actual offer more valuable with
limited investments
Instrument
Value Curve
Taken from “Blue Ocean Strategy” it frames
market scene and positioning strategy of the
players through competitive factors.
Morphological Analysis
Introduced by F. Zwicky, it is applied to
investigate and recombine current alternatives for
the produced products and services, the
customers clusters and the value proposition.
Intervention
Area
Strategic Planning
Redefinition of business boundaries to draw new
strategies and find out new market places
Marketing
Understanding of the elements composing Value
Proposition and redesign of the offering mix
adopting a benefit oriented approach
Expected
Results
New potential market targets
hidden in the chain of buyers or at the edge of
market sector
New offering mix focused on benefits
Key Elements for an effective commercial
communication
Innovation Way® – Workshop Contents

8. 8
WS 3 WS 4
Problem “My product isn’t attractive as it used to be” “What do customers think?”
Requirement
To go from competitors crowded markets
to unexplored markets
To align products and services to
customers’ expectations
Instrument
Creativity Templates
Introduced by Goldenberg and Mazursky, they are
structured methods to innovate actual products
suggesting some actions to do on them, like
removals…
Customer Corridor
To collect informations before, during and after
the purchase moment
Scenario based design
Introduced by J.M. Carroll, it allows to dive into
the situation of use of actual or potential users.
Intervention
Area
Product/Service development
Redesign and development of products and
services in order to add value comparing to similar
offers
Customer Relationship
Hearing customers’ experiences in order to
understand their requirements and find out
improvement opportunities
Expected
Results
New products and services
with new functionalities
New design and new packaging
to communicate the value and make the use easier
User experience scenarios
to find out customers unmet needs
Customer Satisfaction Analysis
to enforce communication towards customers
Innovation Way® – Workshop Contents

9. 9
Innovation Way® – Results
The actual Innovation Way® release has been defined during 2010 and 2011 thanks to the cooperation with
the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Handicraft and Agriculture (CCIAA) in Grosseto, in Pisa and in Cagliari.
Innovation Way® Workshops
Number of
concepts
generated
1
Analysis and re-definition of the
business strategy
13
2 Redesign of the offering mix 21
3 Redesign of the product/service 17
4 Analysis of the user experience 9
Innovation Way® has been joined
by 28 companies coming from
different business areas:
Companies experiencing Innovation Way®
produced 60 new concepts during the different
stages of the methodology:

10. 10
Innovation Way® – Case Study
Workshop 1 Workshop 4
Workshop 2 Workshop 3
Analysis of cheese market:
main competitive factors and
major players behaviors.
Understanding that actual
segment (expert dedicated
cheeses) is a Red Ocean:
necessity to be distinctive.
Exploration of product
benefits: easy to eat and
aphrodisiac. Identification of
a possible market target
according to defined benefits:
young trendy people. Analysis
of target needs/expectations.
Assessment of product
features according to their
capacity of meeting
customers’ needs. Redesign
of the product packaging :
from big bowls to single dose
portions on sticks .
Design of a possible product
scenario of use: happy hour
on the beach. Validation of
proposed packaging solution
and suggestion of other
ideas (mixing with honey,
chilli…)
Summary of principle results achieved by a farm taking part in
Innovation Way® laboratories and producing Casu Axedu, a typical
Sardinian cheese