After US had dropped atomic bombs ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, sea water along the coasts had become contaminated. As a result, many fishes had died or had become contaminated.
Now, fisherman in the coastal areas, had a tough scenario to deal with. They had to go far and wide into the ocean to catch alive and healthy fishes. By the time fisherman used to come back to the beach and go to the market, fishes would become stale and lose the taste. Customers would refuse to buy or pay less price for it.
To overcome this challenge, they thought of using freezers in their boats in which they can keep the fishes frozen after catching them. They started using freezers. Customers still didn’t like the taste of frozen fishes and still were not willing to pay high price for the fishes.
Fishermen’s problem was still not solved. Then they thought of replacing freezers with water tank. Intent was that fishes need natural habitat by the time they can be brought to the market. They started using the water tanks. But the size of water tanks was limited. Fishes had limited space to swim. As result they became sluggish and still were stale by the time they were brought to the shores. Customers were still not willing to pay good price for the fishes.
Fishermen didn’t stop innovating. They had to come up with a killer innovation to survive. One of them suggested to put a small baby shark in the fish tank. The baby shark would eat some of the fishes by the time they arrive at the shore. But as all other fishes were running to save their life, that kept them active by the time they reach the market. And that’s what happened. Fishes were healthy and fresh by the time they reached at the hands of the customer. And of course, they started paying a good price to the fishermen.
Lessons learnt :
A. Its not that Innovation can be done by likes of Steve Jobs, Marc Zuckerbergs and engineers of the world. It can be done by anyone even by less educated or uneducated fishermen
B. We look at innovation as something which can be done at the product or feature level. But the fact is that any aspect of the product which adds some value to the customer can be an tweeked to innovate. So there could be an innovation in pricing, delivery, business model or packaging.
C. For any company or a product manager, it is not advisable to wait for a catastrophic situation like an atomic bomb drop ( market shift, competitor having a better product, change in geopolitical scenario etc) to come up with innovation. We continuously need to innovate.
D. You cannot come to a perfect solution immediately. You need to innovate continously.
Reference : Based on a chapter from Entrepedia by Nandini Vaidyanathan
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