How to ensure that innovations create value for the Customer and to the Business ? It doesn’t matter where scientific discoveries and breakthrough technologies originate—for national prosperity, the important thing is who commercializes them - Amar Bhide (McKinsey Quarterly, Feb 2009). What does it take to successfully commercialize an innovative idea ? The Idea should create significant value both to the Customer and to the Company. Value for Customer = Utility - Price Value for Company = Price - Cost Value = f (Utility, Price, Cost). Here I wish to introduce my favourite TRIZ tool - IFR (Ideal Final Result) or Ideality - that handles this in an elegant way. When you are designing a product - ask three fundamental questions - what are the useful functions that this product serves, what are the harmful functions (anything that is not useful, but users have to put up with) and finally what factors determine the cost. IFR is defined as the ratio ...
Shankar's Approach to Transforming Ideas into Innovations