A Structured Approach to Innovation through “La Salle Matrix Thinking”
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authors and have been used extensively by companies, with varying degrees of success (Griffin, 1997). The dilemma facing many managers nowadays is the need to reconcile two apparently conflicting requirements: fostering innovation and maintaining discipline in the development process. This paper has looked at this dilemma in a comparative study of cases drawn from products mix introduced in the market over the years in the category of new product development as discussed by Roger in his concept of Seeds and Catalysts. It demonstrates how the use of seeds and catalysts (Roger 2006) can help to achieve varying levels of innovation in products. As Roger has demonstrated that arranging both seeds and catalysts in a rectangular grid (Figure 5), a matrix results for thinking. Each intersection of Seed and Catalyst creates a stimulus for creativity. The difference with this innovation matrix, unlike most other way to stimulate thinking, is that the thinking is immediately and directly applicable to products.
RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH To encourage and facilitate further research on innovation in marketing, the present research seeks to collect, explore, and evaluate research on innovation. Key goals of this paper were to provide a structure for thinking about innovation across the fields, highlight important streams of research on innovation, suggest interrelationships, and provide taxonomy of related topics. The author hopes this attempted integration will stimulate fertilization and interaction across fields and promote productive new research. This review attempts to summarize key ideas, highlight problems that are on the cusp of being addressed, and suggest questions for future research. Some of the key unanswered issues are: • Role of a firm‟s internal culture in influencing innovation, including factors such as willingness to cannibalize, visionary leadership, future market orientation, and customer orientation; • Differences in the drivers of innovation by innovation type (product versus process), category (products versus services), and other characteristics; of particular interest are interactions, rather than just main effects; • Impact of macro environmental factors such as research clusters, research incubators, and governmental policies (taxes, incentives, and regulation) on innovation; • Impact of cultures and ethnicity on innovative capabilities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author acknowledges the work of Mr Roger La Salle; Managing Director: La Salle Matrix Thinking; Melbourne – Australia. He is widely sought after as a speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panelist on the ABC television program the New Inventors. In 2005 he was appointed to "Chair of Innovation" at “The Queens University" in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to Deloitte for distribution as e-learning modules the world over. www.matrixthinking.com
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Kelley, T. and Littman, J. (2006). The Ten Faces of Innovation, Strategies for Heightening Creativity. Profile Books, London.