Timberland
Savitha Bangalore
1. The iF was set with a vision for developing breakthrough products that will enhance and extend Timberland’s brand equity, foster business opportunities, and drive profitability over the long term. The iF, started with the concept that better ideas would be built through cross-functional product creation, combining design, development, and manufacturing. The “duct tape” approach lead to pure data collection, with this research iF team was able to put technologies together in a new way to solve an undefined problem. Innovation was definitely working. What the IF team lacked was innovation and integration process. Before launching the product iF team should have considered the optimal combination(s) of product components that appealed to the broadest number of consumers and How to price those packages to maximize revenue. They should have gotten the in-line team input on what sells best.
2. After the failure of travel gear, the iF team created a formal four phase innovation process: 1) Understand, 2) observe & visualize, 3) evaluate & implement, and 4) transition. This helped them concentrated on broad issue of improving shoe fit while reducing complexity in the shoe sizing process, which meant significant efficiency gains, service improvement, and enhanced margins. They did more statistical analyses and began to identify trends and relationships between the various data points that were collected. In parallel with their scientific research, iF also concentrated on marketing plan how the product could be launched, supply chain issues, and inventory management challenges. A pilot study was conducted before the launch and the in-line teams input were taken into consideration to reshape the original design to better meet the needs of their line.
3. Discovery-driven planning is a practical tool that acknowledges the difference between planning for a new venture and planning for a more conventional line of business. Conventional
1. The iF was set with a vision for developing breakthrough products that will enhance and extend Timberland’s brand equity, foster business opportunities, and drive profitability over the long term. The iF, started with the concept that better ideas would be built through cross-functional product creation, combining design, development, and manufacturing. The “duct tape” approach lead to pure data collection, with this research iF team was able to put technologies together in a new way to solve an undefined problem. Innovation was definitely working. What the IF team lacked was innovation and integration process. Before launching the product iF team should have considered the optimal combination(s) of product components that appealed to the broadest number of consumers and How to price those packages to maximize revenue. They should have gotten the in-line team input on what sells best.
2. After the failure of travel gear, the iF team created a formal four phase innovation process: 1) Understand, 2) observe & visualize, 3) evaluate & implement, and 4) transition. This helped them concentrated on broad issue of improving shoe fit while reducing complexity in the shoe sizing process, which meant significant efficiency gains, service improvement, and enhanced margins. They did more statistical analyses and began to identify trends and relationships between the various data points that were collected. In parallel with their scientific research, iF also concentrated on marketing plan how the product could be launched, supply chain issues, and inventory management challenges. A pilot study was conducted before the launch and the in-line teams input were taken into consideration to reshape the original design to better meet the needs of their line.
3. Discovery-driven planning is a practical tool that acknowledges the difference between planning for a new venture and planning for a more conventional line of business. Conventional