on a ski lift or in a deep shaft mine. Cross- pollination occurs once we have tested and proven out the technology.
Tom Miller: I would agree whole-heartedly with that. T e companies that are investing in research and development in our industry want to be the ones to bring the product to market and reap the rewards.
Wire Rope Exchange: Do any of you see smaller, very innovative companies collaborating with the largest players in the industry? T at is the open innovation model that Proctor and Gamble has used successfully. So, an entrepreneurial company can get more market traction by working with a large, established company.
Brad Benner: I think anyone who distributes products would agree that you try to develop partnerships with manufacturers. One of the products we distribute in North America is from a Korean company that has a 30,000-square foot R&D facility, where all they do is play with wires and wire ropes and see what happens. T ey have electron microscopes and computer imaging and modeling techniques – all kinds of high tech equipment just to test wires and wire rope. We try to do the same things. We have access to this information and we share it with our customers.
I would tend to disagree with the guys a little bit. I think the industry has always practiced a little bit of a crowd sourcing in an informal manner. Wire rope manufacturers buy from distributors. Distributors buy from
their competitors. T ere is a lot of napkin design collaboration that has gone on forever. People know what each other can do and they work together to develop products.
Wire Rope Exchange: Brad, Have resources such as LinkedIn been helpful to you?
Brad Benner: I started two groups on LinkedIn: Wire Ropes and Lifting and Rigging. I tried to make it selective so that only people in our industry could be involved with it. T e Wire Rope group has over 500 members and the Lifting and Rigging group has over 1600 members. T ere are these fantastic moments when someone like a safety director from Exxon Mobil will ask for input about the development of a lifting standard and they will get responses from every continent about their perspective and their understanding of the standards and how those apply to local requirements and industry requirements. I have learned a lot myself from these exchanges of information. I think it has made me better at what I do.
Wire Rope Exchange: Our next topic is measurement. How do each of you measure innovation performance?
Tom Miller: It is very simple for me. T e success of innovation is measured in revenue. Two years ago, we partnered with another company to design a special new vertical load tester. T at new tester has created many opportunities for us to diff erentiate Marcal
Rope and Rigging . T e revenue it has generated has been phenomenal.
Mike Parnell: I think a major measure of innovation performance is customers and clients telling us you have hit a home run.
Brad Benner: I agree with both Tom and Mike. To add to that, innovation performance is indicated by people being excited about what they are doing. T at includes customers, suppliers and your own employees. When they are excited about what they are doing – that is a good indication that you are doing things right.
Wire Rope Exchange: It’s just about time to wrap-up our roundtable. What fi nal thoughts or words of wisdom would you like to share with our readers?
Mike Parnell: Real innovators must be willing to fail. If you have management or leadership that really inhibits or prohibits failure of any type, the writing is on the wall that they are not going to be innovative in what they are doing. We need to be willing to fail because each failure will teach us and tell us something about where we need to go.
Brad Benner: I would say the other side of that coin is perseverance. If you allow yourself to make some mistakes you have to be willing to stick to it as well. You can’t let one failure set you back.
Tom Miller: I have to remind myself fairly regularly that its okay when something doesn’t work. Not everything is a home run. Without the failures you don’t appreciate the successes either. ❙
Wire Rope Exchange: T ank you Tom, Mike and Brad. It was great fun engaging with you in this discussion. You’ve provided food for thought and great insights. We’ll have to do this again.
Karen Maples, founder of Myutiq - a fi rm helping companies implement repeatable innovation processes, and Melissa Hood, publisher of the Wire Rope Exchange, led the Innovation Roundtable Discussion. Maples, recognized as a thought leader and accomplished strategy expert, Karen established the company because of her passion to combine visionary thinking with a well-defi ned innovation strategy process. Karen holds a B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She has completed post-graduate studies in strategic planning and marketing strategy at Harvard Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
To fi nd out more, visit:
www.myutiq.com or
www.myutiqblog.com WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2012 25
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