What's the Big Idea?

Innovation Management, assignment 2_What’s the BIG idea?      

1)Why does BIG seem better able to identify and bring to market innovative toy concepts whereas the major toy companies feel they are I a period of lack of innovation?

The Big Ides Group was founded in 2000 by Michael Collins, and it was born as an intermediary between inventors and idea-buying companies in the kids’ industry.

He developed an holistic process to use ideas as resources and transform them into valuable products.

The process he created, combined with his unique ability to manage all the parts that made it up, was the key of the BIG’s success and made him able to turn innovation into a business.

He understood that the key for value creating was all about innovative products.

He already had experience in the kids’ industry and he got an MBA at Harvard Business School, so he decided to combine his knowledge of the kids’ area with the venture capital process to create a new way of managing innovation.

The question asks why BIG seems better able to identify and bring to market innovative toy concepts while the majority toy companies are in a period of lack of innovation, we think it’s exactly this crisis period that gave BIG the opportunity to succeed.

The basic concept was to create a company that would tap into the world of individual inventors. Inventions pop-up from many different places and not only via well-founded product developed departments within large companies but also from individual thinkers.

So Collins created a process called “innovation engine” with the aim to collect the higher number of inventions, get in touch with the single inventor, choosing then the best ideas, refining them and finally selling  it to toy companies.

Of course, the process is more complicated than what it seems, so let’s take a look on how it is composed in the single steps.

The first step consist in generating idea and it has six sources interconnected for creating a network of inventors and idea flows.

The Hunts is a strategic moment in the research because during those events thousands of inventors present their ideas but also present themselves, and Collins believes it’s important to give the inventors the right importance in the process, making them feel confident and improving trust and encouragement. This moment provide the opportunity to build a network of professional inventors that could work close with the firm. Another important aspect of the Hunts is the “panel”: each idea is presented in front of a group of industry professionals who will evaluate the potential of the rough idea.