Pioneers – those innovative “first movers” who enter markets before competitors are often defined as engines of economic growth while imitators are generally scorned as copycats and shameful followers.
Calling someone a copycat isn’t usually a very nice thing to say. Many people think imitation itself has a negative connotation. Despite this, some companies are notorious for fiercely copying each other’s products and services, essentially “stealing” ideas.
While some consumers and firms get frustrated with companies releasing copycat products, the reality is that this results in better products for the consumer.
What consumers and companies fail to realise, is that a copycat company is putting pressure on first mover company to innovate to stay ahead of the game. Over time, these two strategies will continue to innovate and differentiate, pushing the other to do better. What looks like innovation is often actually artful imitation. This is healthy competition, without competition, everything stagnates. When a product that has been in development for one year can be copied and brought to market in a very short time, first mover advantage has lost its … well, advantage. Where innovation brings new things into the world, imitation spreads them; where innovators break the habits, imitators perfect the new one; and while innovators can win big, imitators often win bigger.
Coming up with breakthrough ideas and innovations is indeed tempting and glamorous, if successful. Success could namely be market domination. However, this strategy carries the biggest risks and demands massive efforts and resources. It is an activity that is complex, costly and with very little promise of a return on investment. Work on the successor of the successful product has to start immediately, which means that the successive research budget must be increasingly higher than the original innovation.
In today’s expansive market, it’s challenging to be a copycat. Don’t let that deter you.
Do you want to be a pioneer innovator that carries great risks and get only 2.2% of your possible innovation value?
Or do you want to be in the category of copycat Innovators that could possibly reap 97.8% of the innovation value?
Picasso had a saying: “Bad artists copy, great artists steal.”
Was that provoking reading? – Here’s is the point
Companies can innovate more quickly by standing on the shoulders of their competitors than by constantly starting from scratch.
Smart companies inspires each other, taking some poorly implemented ideas and making them better
The intelligent design approach facing these conditions, and the best and most efficient route to innovation is not imitation or copying, but what we call inspiration.
Smart steps on the road to innovation
Be able to ask the right questions to identify the core issue – identifying the causes and not just the symptoms, look at the market, observe consumers, find the inspirational ideas, convert them, redesign existing components, refine them, improve and optimize them, adapt them, built better, cut to the core, test the ideas and prototyping rather than planning, and make sure to be ethical and respects intellectual property rights.
Design is not about being subtle
It’s about bringing up the distinctive character of a product and accentuating it. One of the key design principles of great designers is to make the assets of the product positively stand out.
Design is about implementing user needs.
Design runs on the spirit of “put it on the market and see how it goes.” Production cycles are very short and quality may be compromised, but over time some product can be improved and becomes more stable.
It is only on the market a product will prove it’s value.
In other words, it is time to be innovative about inspiration.
© Copycatright Svend Onø