The Hindu Business Line : <I>Grand vs practical </I>

To run an organisation successfully it is not necessary to have a basketful of grand ideas leaving the rivals panting behind. Oracular dicta such as "It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product" (David Ogilvy) or "Not to be different is virtually suicidal" (Bill Bernbach) are now found to be preachy stuff. People in organisations cannot be weaned away from a mercenary attitude and made to display missionary zeal by flaunting aphorisms which, however pithy, are dismissed as pretentious and impractical.

What counts in today's dizzying whirligig that the business world has become is not a flash of genius which may merely be blinding, without doing anything to enthuse and energise team members and pump into them enough self-esteem to make them give of their best. As an article in Strategy+Business puts it, "Novelty for the sake of novelty is not only risky, it is more often than not a recipe for irrelevance".

In support, it mentions a study of 1,300 publicly traded US companies in 55 industries which found that only four broad ideas, copied across sectors, accounted for 80 per cent of the breakout businesses created between 1965 and 1995. Power retailing, megabranding, simplification/standardisation, and the value chain bypass.

The other off-beat propositions that the article dwells on are: Imitation across industries is more efficient and effective than blue-sky creativity and innovation ("appropriating existing...concepts is cheaper — and certainly quicker to implement — than developing new ones."); the energy is not in the idea; but in the execution; and effective execution comes from faith in what one does, and not from any authoritarian fiat.

No idea should be discounted simply because it has already been tried or is commonplace; it is how and where you apply it that can make a big difference.

B. S. RAGHAVAN