Innovation Roadmap Essay

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Innovation Road Map

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
Four Lenses and How You Would Staff and Organize Them 2
Description of Current State Business Model 5
Early Expected Insights from the Innovation Discovery Process 7
Innovation Architecture 8
Description of Future State Business Model 9
Innovation Pipeline 10
Innovation Migration Path 11
Critical Projects to Execute 12
Initiative Portfolio Road Map 13

Introduction Baker Manufacturing Company, Inc. (The Company) has been in business since April, 1954. Since its inception The Company has manufactured furniture. The Company has evolved from making office lobby furniture and dorm room furniture to its current product line of height adjustable office furniture. Additionally, from 1996 until January, 2010 Baker Manufacturing Company, Inc. was the sole source manufacturer of clerk work stations for the United States Postal Service. The contract with the United States Postal Service made the USPS either the number one or number two customer of Baker Manufacturing for the last 14 years. The primary driver of innovation for the company was its founder James R. Baker, Sr. With his passing in 2002, the company has not had any innovative breakthroughs for almost 15 years. The only innovation that has occurred is in the area of product improvement; the improvement of the mechanism that is used to move the height adjustable table. Primarily, the product improvements have been the introduction of a screw tube assembly that can be adjusted by a crank handle and moving from an electric motor that was used in the electric height adjustable table to a linear actuator. Baker Manufacturing Company, Inc. is now in a position where it is important for the company to bring in new innovation. Not only does The Company need to bring in innovation for new products, but The Company needs to bring in new innovation to address some of its legacy processes and procedures. In the following pages an innovation road map has been presented to assist The Company in its innovation endeavors.

Four Lenses and How You Would Staff and Organize Them The four lenses consist of the following; challenge orthodoxies, harnessing discontinuities, leveraging competencies and strategic assets, and understanding unarticulated needs.
Challenge Orthodoxies The orthodoxies that are present in The Company’s current environment are: 1. When selling a product to office furniture dealers the discount % is very important. 2. The Company increases its sales and improves its profitability through cost reduction and process improvements.
The team that should be assembled in order to challenge these orthodoxies would be composed of the Vice President of Operations, the Vice President of Sales, the Chief Financial Officer, the Vice President of Western Regional Sales and the Sales and Marketing Lead. This team’s challenge would be how The Company could change its profit and sales scheme to break out of the sales price reduction cycle. This team would have six months to accomplish this task.
Harnessing Discontinuities The discontinuities that are present in The Company’s current environment are: 1. The trend in the office furniture industry is the reduction of heft in the products. Meaning they are moving to less bulky products, but this means that the products are also less durable. This is an effort on the part of office furniture dealers to reduce the cost of the total sale amount to the end user. 2. Customers are asking for an increasing number of special tables to meet specific applications. Customers are moving away from buying standard products.
The team that should be assembled in order to challenge these discontinuities would be composed of the Vice President of Operations, the Director of R&D and Design, The Engineering Manager, and the Sales and Marketing Lead. This team’s
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