Cross Post: : Solving problems in India's retail growth..A possible TRIZ study?

Kerala Government banned multinational companies retail entry to the state.
People attack Reliance Fresh (A retail arm started by Reliance) outlet in North India..
Maharashtra state government is planning to ban retail stores..

Other side of the coin...

Bharti-Walmart joint venture acquire floor space to setup their retail shop..
Mahindra and Mahindra joins retail bandwagon...

These are the news captured my attention in last several weeks. As I started analyzing this situation systematically, there seems to be an interesting contradiction coming out from the overall problem. Considering the nature of this, many will consider this as a “Wicked problem”. However, if we can see a inherent contradiction in this, TRIZ is a way to go according to me. Before defining the contradiction, let us apply IFR.

Looking this particular problem, what stands out is the number of stake holders involved in..

- Government of India – Doing good by opening up the foreign investments in retail

- Consumers – End customer so attached to the “mall culture” now

- Companies – Successful rate of growth, growing economy, purchasing power of individuals – There lies the gold mine..

- Finally, what we see as the problem element (from the above news clipping) – The poor old “kinarawala” shop owners (Owners of small shops besides the foot path)

Let us try defining the problem using Ideal Final Result briefly..

Each stake holders has their own ideal final result

- Government – Attracting foreign investment

- Consumers – Cheap, one-stop-shop, experience of shopping etc..

- Companies – Of course money..

- The small shop owners – better day-by-day living

If I start thinking about the ideality, what really popping out here is the change in consumer mindset; they would like to experience the swanky shopping mall, getting their goods cheaper, and not just shopping, but a “shoppertainment”. This is an opportunity for the big companies, since the purchasing power of consumers are growing, and the current infrastructure growth in this area (new shops, facilities) is not so good, investment is this sector is like entering to a gold mine. Between, there are the traditional shop owners living their lives for several years completely depending on the consumers shopping needs.

It looks like the consumers will have to reside in the super-system of our problem.

Look at this issue from the retail investor’s (big companies) perspective. They know the consumers are not completely satisfied with these small shop owners, and they enjoy shopping malls, cheap, quality services etc. They also want to make money from the untapped potential market.

From the small shop owner’s side: They can not influence the consumer behavior. They will also have difficulties in protesting against the government for a long time. They do know that they have the problems providing the consumer one-stop-shop, mall atmosphere.

Having analyzed the problem from retail investors and small shop owner’s angle, we can assume the solutions can come out from the government. As a growing economy, for encouraging investments, government can not put a hold on the issue of displacement of several small shop owners. At the same time, people elected the government, and it is their duty to protect the people, where the small shop owners are among them. There comes a physical contradiction: Allow investment in the retail area Vs does not allow them to setup the shops.

Before getting into the solution space using principles, we can expand the IFR asking more questions favorable to “Allow investment question” so that we have better solution space created.

- What is stopping government (or what is the obstacle government should solve)

o SOHO’s are displaced, and they protest against the entry of big companies

- Why is it stopping?

o The SOHO’s are displaced because they are not able to satisfy the need of growing consumers, better facilities like the big retailers.

From the “Does not allow investment…”

- What is stopping government to not to allow investment

o Economy is growing, purchasing power of consumer is growing, not enough infrastructure etc..

Now, having got this physical contradiction, let us ask some questions as;

Where do we (as a government) want to allow investment in retail?

- Where maximum potential in terms of consumers spending money

Where do we want them not to allow to investment in retail?

- Where maximum displacement will happen w.r.t the SOHO’s.

When do we want the investment to be allowed?

- When there is an enough opportunities (Growing economy, purchasing power, consumer demand, need etc)

When do we want the investment not be allowed?

- When the SOHO’s can satisfy the need of consumers, give the taxes etc back to the government

Well, the process described here needs further elaboration using 9-Windows, more IFR process and resources. I’m doing them in my mind…

Now having got a bigger dimension to the problem, we can perhaps jump into the solution space using TRIZ principles. What we need to keep in mind is about the parties involved in the physical contradiction for solutions. Remember, we need solution without compromising any..

As a physical contradiction, we have the following category:

Segmentation in space – Principles provide here are, segmentation, taking out, local quality, another dimension, other way around, curvature, nested doll, flexible shells/thin films, asymmetry, intermediary, copying

Segmentation in time – This set of principles should be considered as an improvement steps for solutions generated by the above principle set.

Solutions:

Ok. Without using TRIZ principles, I’m sure you all have generated several solutions by now. If you have, then map them back to any principles if you can, otherwise read on..

I’m not trying to describe solutions using each principle here, but here are something interesting from my view.

Taking out : Take out the “kinarawala” shops. Well, take out means, not just taking out, but take out them and do something good for them as well.

Nested Doll: Put “Kinarawala” shops to big malls.. (I’m excited with this solution from practical point of view..)Using segmentation along with this, a big retail company can provide facilities inside their mall for the SOHO's to sell their goods..

Another dimension: Use the “Kinarawalas” expertise in dealing consumers inside the mall. Use them as sales people

Other solutions I have in my mind is perhaps from a consumer point of view, and I do not know the implementability.

Cross Post : Resources again...This time for service innovation?

One of my earlier posting talked about using “resources” for developing innovative products. This week BusinessWeek article showcased an emerging trend (that’s what they call it), Cloud Computing!! Interestingly, the article talks about Google, Yahoo etc letting to open up their huge computing power and storage space to the world. Analogy is “it's the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities”.

Amazon has pioneered in this and even making money out of it. Now that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo coming to market this may even get commoditized. I wouldn’t surprise to see Intel and AMD manufacture high–end processors only for handful of companies across the world, setting up huge data center and we would buy computing power from them..! Anyway, that’s futuristic. It could even be “Other way” around; each one of our personal computer, mobile phone work as a part of Google data center (Remember SETI!)

From the TRIZ angle, I see the concept of using “Existing, cheap/low cost/underutilized/free resources” is a definite opportunity for innovation. We have resources all around us, but we don’t know; we have resources inside our system, but we don’t consider that for other activities which they are not originally intended for. At times even the harmful elements in the system are resources for solving our problems. Then the question boils down to; how do we identify them?

• Draw a 9 Window, and identify your system-present
• List everything you can think about in your sub-system present
• Look everything in your super-system present
• Identify resources unused, not effectively used, cheap/low cost. Even “people emotions” are resources!
• Think about the future – What do you going to do with these resources in the future? Can you use them for something else?

TRIZCON 2008 and Indian Connection!!

Finally all (most of the) the TRIZCON 2008 abstracts are out.. Check out here

35 abstracts in total, and interesting to see the Asian connection, especially Indian..!! There are 15 papers coming only from Asia; India, China, Taiwan and Korea. What is more interesting is about 6 papers only from India!

I'm very happy to see Karthik and Prashant's papers as well. I look forward to see them at TRIZCON 2008. And another good news, and I'm so proud of is that Navneet is taking one tutorial!!

Another interesting observation; NO paper from Japan!! Even the regular and one of the most passionate TRIZnik from Japan, Toru san, is also missing in the list. It looks like they are more successful in running the Japan TRIZ conference started last year. It looks like western world is going to miss the practitioners TRIZ success.

I'm very happy to see the number of papers from MindTree this time. The first year after I joined we presented one paper (From my VP), and last year 3 and this year 4. I hope to get more in future, not just for TRIZCON, but other TRIZ conferences across the world.

It is however disappointing to see the number of quality papers coming down (from the abstracts). Comparing to ETRIA and Japan TRIZ conference, TRIZCON is yet to evolve bringing quality paper. I do see some progress from last year though..

Good to see Amir Roggel is speaking this time, as a key note speaker. Perhaps the best TRIZ facilitator in a corporate environment. Over 1000 people have been trained under his leadership at Intel. I'm glad to be associated with him for a new Industry TRIZ Learning initiative by him.

I look forward to the completion of mine and my colleagues papers. I'm grateful working with them, without them many of my achievements couldn't have reached here. I also thank my friends and other TRIZnik's around me, the friends some of whom I have never met, but working with them by co-authoring some papers.

Hope to see you all at TRIZCON 2008..!

TRIZ- Systematic Innovation - From Prashant

Don't Pour One More Please.... Our Glass is full....

Hello everybody, I am Prashant. I am trying my best to grasp TRIZ with a child's inquisitiveness. These days everyone talks about WHY part of Innovation but no one really talks about HOW part of it. My conviction tells me that TRIZ provides an answer to that HOW part.

Taking TRIZ to people is not an easy task, as most people believe that creativity and Innovation capability belongs to genius individuals and therefore they have apprehensions about venturing into this territory. Many people whom world knows as genius were like you & me, the only quality they had in them was their ability to quickly unlearn & ask questions challenging the status-quo. (Ideal Final Result)

Another major risk that they perceive is systematic innovation may be a time consuming process and may not be congruent with the expectations of free, perfect & now world.

Every organization has proponents of various approaches like SIX SIGMA, Lean, TOC, TPM etc. They try their best to influence top management to bless them & their approach and recognize it as an Organizational approach. My tryst with such approaches made me realize that at one point in time, one requires applying his brain and needs to do some serious thinking to get real breakthrough solutions for quantum improvements. In my opinion all these approaches fell short in thinking part. Ground reality is that people are really tired to pursue these approaches as they don't fully owe them and view them as someone else's aspiration which they need to blindly follow & execute. Few organizations drag with these things as they don't want to appear backward in this globalised world. On backdrop of all this if you approach people with TRIZ, their initial reaction is not very encouraging. We need to change this and adapt ingenious ways to propagate this wonderful Innovation Science.

I will conclude this discussion with a small story; when PARSIS came to India, they landed in the west coast & requested LOCAL king for a shelter. King was not willing as it meant an additional burden to his Kingdom and that too also of an outsider. To convey his decision he sent a glass full of milk indicating that he can not accommodate them. PARSIS put a spoonful of sugar in it and returned the glass to the king. The message was very clear that their community ( TRIZ approach in our case) will get well mixed with locals ( Existing Initiatives) adding value to their endeavours.( Much desired SWEETNESS). The moral of the story is that we need to integrate TRIZ with each of the contemporary approaches so well that it creates a unique value a TRIZ Value. I am sure TRIZ has power to enhance Innovation Quotient of an individual and also that of an organization. which is also the need of the hour.

Chak De......

Integrating TRIZ with Other methods

The holistic viewpoint is to create a generic framework by integrating techniques and methods to solve problem. TRIZ definitely is central - however - it has inherent gaps that other methods can fill up. I have been working on such integrated frameworks and just review some of my previous papers published - may be of interest

Robust Inventive Software Design (DSM 2005 Conference) (reproduced below)

Title: Robust Inventive Software Design (RISD) - A Framework Combining Design Structure Matrix (DSM), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and TRIZ
Authors: Bhushan, Navneet

Continuously increasing complexity in the modern day software systems call for radically different measures to ensure high levels of software productivity. Coupled with increasing distance between user requirements of what they really need versus what they want, is creating major challenges that current approaches to software design are finding exceedingly difficult to meet. Further the problems of software design are compounded due to non-physical nature of software systems, where intuition, experience and judgment of experts plays more important role than quantitative and measurable metrics of the traditional engineering world.
This paper addresses these challenges through a proposed framework combining the Design Structure Matrix (DSM), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem solving). TRIZ concept of ideality, functionality and contradictions elimination is used to come up with inventive solutions to business problems. These solutions flow through the expert judgments of multiple stakeholders captured through AHP to compute the real value being delivered to the customers of the software product. Based on this analysis, solutions are broken down in subsystems or software elements whose complexity is computed through the DSM. To compute this complexity the fundamental principle of software design which states minimized module coupling and maximized module cohesion, is used to measure the ideal software system delivering the functionality. The complexity measure of proposed alternatives designs is compared with the complexity of the ideal software system to choose the best design alternative. Further the DSM is used to choose integration test cases for testing the design.
The RISD framework proposed in this paper has in built processes for inventive or idea generation along with incorporating expert judgment in a systematic manner and analyzing the complexity of the proposed designs to create robust software systems with minimum complexity.

The presentation can be downloaded from : the conference web site

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) and TRIZ - A Framework for Global Product Development
Navneet Bhushan

Continuously increasing complexity in the modern day systems call for radically different approaches to ensure high levels of functionality, quality and performance in new product development. Increasing globalization indicates that the world will witness more of Global Product Development (GPD). Further the problems of new product developers are compounded due to great amount of software that is embedded in many products. The non-physical nature of software systems, where intuition, experience and judgment of experts plays more important role than quantitative and measurable metrics of the traditional engineering world, increases the complexity for the global product developers.

The pdf can be downloaded from Altshuller Institute Site here

Vedic Inventive Principles and TRIZ

Cross posting from my other blog
-----------------------------------

Karthik's article on The Vedic Inventive Principles which he has been carrying out research for last almost a year has been published at the innovationtools. One can download the artilce as pdf from there.

I have experimented with some of these principles in the Innovation workshops, and found to be very productive. These are used as triggers for making people come out of psychological inertia. Further some of Karthik's explanations as described in his paper have been quite effective.

This has led us to explore other sources of higher inventive principles. Of course the initial trigger was the TRIZ 40 Inventive Principles. As part of larger sources of higher order principles we are carrying out research on other sources besides ancient texts which Karthik has been researching. Other sources may be nature - natural evolution, complexity theory, complex systems, heuristic optimization rechniques - Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Ant Colony Algorithms, etc. It will be great if more people join in this research to explore and come out with a higher order set of Inventive principles.