Studio Graphene director Ritam Gandhi talks innovation

By Ritam Gandhi, Founder, and Director, Studio Graphene.

The phrase ‘innovate or die’ conjures up a world in which every company is on the cutting edge of technological innovation.

They are ready to revolutionise their respective industry with one, masterfully executed, ingenious new product or initiative.

Of course, this is far from reality. In fact, acting with this mindset may actually harm your company in the long run.

Innovation for innovation’s sake could lead to poor decision making and actually stifle the exploratory corporate culture that you’re trying to cultivate in your organisation.

Innovation insights with Ritam Gandhi from Studio Graphene

Last year, Studio Graphene surveyed over 750 senior decision-makers in a variety of industries.

What we found was that 45% of respondents said that their organisation was too risk-averse to properly embrace new technologies, a figure which rose to 70% among those in large businesses.

The key point here is that to facilitate true innovation, you must have a culture where people understand that they’re “free to fail”.

What this means is that staff should approach new technologies, systems, and ideas with the mentality of curiosity not a fight for survival and that failure should not be treated as a disastrous result. Instead, it should be seen as an opportunity for learning.

To illustrate this point, below I will offer some examples of organisations that have either successfully innovated, pursued innovation for innovation’s sake, or become far too complacent in their current market leader position; leading to problems down the road.

Giants will fall

One example of a company that was too complacent to explore beyond the framework it was already familiar with is Nokia; once a pace-setter in the mobile phone manufacturing industry.

The company’s vision of innovation was entirely focussed on improving the hardware of their products.

As such, they tried everything: flip phones, keypads, micro-phones – every iteration of the personal hand-held mobile phone that they could think of to see what stuck.

Real progress in this domain, as we all know, was software rather than hardware.

The iPhone established the smartphone industry not because the touchscreen was itself revolutionary – some phones already boasted this feature – but rather the sheer computing capacity and range of applications the phone could provide.

Apple and Android became the newly established dominant figures in this industry while Nokia fell by the wayside.

The constant innovate-or-die ideals meant that the company was too busy trying to reinvent the flip-phone to anticipate the global transition to smartphones and by the time they did; it was too late.

If they had an internal culture where radical, innovative ideas were more commonplace and taken seriously – it’s likely that Nokia would still be the tech behemoth it once was.

This serves as an example of the danger of complacency, while highlighting why innovation is such a hot topic.

Yet this is not just an issue among large organisations; even microbusiness can become too comfortable and complacent, relying on doing things the same way they always have.

Such an approach leaves any company at risk of being overtaken by competitors and losing customers in the process.

Wisdom from failure

Businesses might take inspiration from Google; a prime example of a company that tests new ideas but uses any resulting failures to fuel even greater ventures.

Its history is paved with trying out novel solutions, recognising when they’re not working, and, in turn, utilising the knowledge gained in their other products.

Google+ was their attempt at creating a social media.

The company experimented with many different variations of this idea but never managed to make any ground against the social media goliath that is Facebook.

This platform was disbanded in 2018, but the lessons they learned can be seen across their G-suite of products today.

Infamously in 2013, they made it a necessity to have a Google+ account to comment on YouTube, provoking outrage by many frustrated users.

In response, they’ve since gone in the other direction; and if you’ve ever been sent a link to edit a Google document, you can see this in action.

This direction was reversed and now users can enjoy the full range of what Google has to offer without being bogged down by laborious mandatory account sign-up or sign-in pages.

Accessibility is now a core part of all their features, to the benefit of users and Google executives alike.

Failure: not to be feared

What separates the examples above is that the former was too complacent to dare to innovate outside of what they already knew, and the latter – while unsuccessful – took a risk which allowed them to better understand their own customers and improve their overall service offerings moving forward.

Whilst failure is undoubtedly painful, it provides invaluable opportunities to learn what works and what doesn’t in a way no simulation could ever seek to replicate.

It is also worth bearing in mind that, 99% of the time, companies will not die if they do not innovate.

However, what they do risk is failing to reach their full potential due to a fear of trying – perhaps an even more discouraging sentiment.

To effectively oversee digital transformation projects, businesses must break free of cultural barriers and understand that failure is part and parcel of innovation.

Having the freedom to make mistakes comes naturally with the territory.

After all, it is not just a risk-averse corporate culture that holds innovation back – it is a personal mindset, too.

Decision-makers are likely to more concerned with not rocking the boat and doing a solid job than pursuing risky new ideas that may or may not tarnish their reputation.

Business leaders should keep this in mind when encouraging out-of-the-box thinking; going against the flow involves giving decision-makers and employees the support they need to put forward suggestions without fear of reprimand if the initiatives don’t quite work out.

Not only must companies facilitate an internal culture that allows this, but they must also establish internal structures that accelerate the process.

Tearing down the bureaucracy and red tape that could stifle burgeoning ideas from being implemented within organisations is paramount, and decision-makers may even want to create a department entirely dedicated to exploring new ideas surrounding how new technologies can be implemented.

There is no textbook or blueprint on innovation, but great leaders recognise that it is mostly the result of trial and error.

One project that provides incredible benefits for years will recuperate the resources spent on multiple failed ideas many times over.

About the author:

Ritam Gandhi, is the Founder and Director of Studio Graphene – a London-based company that specialises in the development of blank canvas tech products including apps, websites, AR, IoT and more. The company has completed over 100 projects since first being started in 2014, working with both new entrepreneurs and product development teams within larger companies.

Prepared by Patrick O’Brien

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