The challenge for companies in the glass making business, especially those with significant resources and financial strength, is to differentiate themselves by developing and introducing new profit opportunities for their customers, something that can be done by meeting the requirements of the industries we serve as well as anticipating future trends and demands.

Already we are witness to an evolution of new coatings, films, polymers, chemistry, and glass patterns. But this challenge also includes our customers, who are creating new applications to create more value and demand for glass from the ultimate consumer.

This style of competition will require a redefinition of strategy to one of making the most of an opportunity rather than one of increasing market share or size.

To reap a disproportionate share of potential profits, business must have a more diverse set of competencies. Those who say – that’s the way it is – will never have a future because what got you “here” will not get you “there.” And since people change only when they have to, their minds, like parachutes, only work when they are open.

For this reason, management’s attention must be expanded from day-to-day operations to a different course of direction. Decisive managers should not be buried in policies and procedures that hinder them from using their creative talents to address an opportunity.

While innovation can accelerate the pace, it can only partially determine the direction. Technology must be harnessed; it will never be a substitute for leadership that prefers action to rhetoric. The scarcest resource of all is time. The temptation is to reset the clock, but we cannot. Nature is the timekeeper and winning boils down to desire and effort more so than skill and experience.

Merely restructuring the current business model will not handle these consumer-driven technologies, nor can they be affected by administrative decree. Foresight must be matched with field execution. While the stakes are high, the financial health of a company depends on its role in creating tomorrow’s markets.

Since consumers lack such foresight, it will be our collective duty to lead the public to the future. Twenty years ago, few consumers would have asked for cell phones, Internet access, global positioning systems or iPods. This is magnified by the fact that the average person today has access to more information on their BlackBerry or other smart phone than existed in the entire world just 40 years ago.

If we stand back from the rigors of daily business and take a distant view, we can witness the gestation phase of a new industry being born within the traditional glass industry. Creative glass manufacturers are spearheading this rebirth by trying to differentiate themselves not only from other domestic suppliers but also to shield themselves from less expensive commodity imports.

In the past, glass products were merely a “see through” item. Now glass is becoming ever more integral to our lives. This remarkable material, with its incredible combination of function, beauty and strength, is enriching contemporary life and we are fortunate that the core essence of our business lends itself to so many innovations.

In the coming age of a myriad of new products these innovations will have both a feature as well as a functional orientation. Consequently the marketing of these products will be more focused on the demanding desires of the end consumer rather than the competitive nature of purchasing agents. This will shift the business model to one where profit margins will be proportional to the creativity, knowledge, and ambition of marketing and sales personnel rather than the traditional cost-plus structure. This, in essence, is today’s new playing field.

This situation may also provide a competitive advantage for large global glassmakers even as we see a proliferation of regional players. While size alone does not create a sustainable advantage, it does provide necessary financial resources to nurture and develop new technologies. It also provides the operating leverage, stamina, and global presence to bring them to market. At the same time, it can be a double-edged sword: large, bureaucratic organizations not in sync with the market tend to lose the correct balance between research and manufacturing capability. And while small companies may not afford the technological research, big companies must decide on the direction of technology as well as the protection of their intellectual property.

Guardian is a diversified global manufacturing company headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, with leading positions in float glass, fabricated glass products, fiberglass insulation and other building materials for commercial, residential and automotive markets. Through its Science & Technology Center, Guardian is at the forefront of innovation including development of high performance glass coatings and other advanced products. Guardian, its subsidiaries and affiliates employ 19,000 people and operate facilities throughout North America, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

One way to establish market differentiation is through the introduction of innovative new products. Establishing market differentiation is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another. We have put together a ten part series on how to generate higher returns from your innovation investments.

From our series of highly informational articles, companies will learn: how to treat innovation as a cross-functional business process, how to align innovation execution and business strategy; how to create sustainable innovation; how to train your senior executives to successfully execute innovation initiatives; how to effectively manage process and project management; how to measure performance of your processes; how to ensure broad stakeholder buy-in; how to understand the importance of product roadmaps; how to provide the tools necessary for successful product innovation; and finally, how to ensure that portfolio management coincides with process management.

Here is one of the ten practices that leading innovators use to increase the payback from innovation spending: Understanding the Importance of Product Roadmaps

Understanding the Importance of Product Roadmaps

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Most new product ideas are connected to or dependent upon other projects in the development pipeline. By having visibility to the entire product portfolio and all the proposed projects on the table, decision makers can instantly see the impact of adding or removing a given innovation initiative.

For example, let’s imagine that a proposed product is expected to be a large revenue generator, but it is dependent upon the completion of a technology development project that has been delayed by a lack of resources. It follows that further steps must be taken to ensure that the faltering initiative is completed on time.

One proven technique for addressing this challenge is to create visual roadmaps of the inter-relationships among projects, including high-level graphical markers identifying the following components that could impact the timing and delivery of a particular product:

• External market,

• Technological events, or

• Customer events

This allows decision-makers to quickly assess the overall effect a decision will have on the project and guards against unwitting sabotage of connected initiatives.

Software-based roadmapping and portfolio management solutions are available that provide this kind of visualization and also help companies link their long-term roadmaps to their short-term product pipeline. Assessing the best roadmapping and portfolio management solutions for your company should include a thorough analysis on all components as it relates to your processes in which success relies heavily on:

• Product and technology roadmapping,

• Idea generation and management,

• Stage- or phase-based product development methodologies

• Resource planning, and

• Portfolio management

Once you have determined the best solution, implementing the necessary tools and software is the next step to moving forward with prospective products and realizing profits for those deemed profitable. In our next article, we go over how to provide the tools necessary for successful product innovation.

While more than half of senior corporate executives have recently indicated (through recent studies) their dissatisfaction with the returns their organizations have generated from investments in innovation, some organizations are realizing as much as forty to sixty percent more revenue and profit from new products than their industry peers. How are these companies set apart?

For more information on the top practices that leading innovators use to increase their returns on innovation spending, look for the next article in our ten-part series: Providing the Tools Necessary for Successful Product Innovation.

Waiting for the confirmation of the increment of foreign tourist flows to Italy, looking at the positive data (+4%) of 2007, it is interesting to underline that the Bel Paese hospitality, focuses its attention on the analysis of a new phenomenon called “sustainable tourism”.

Sustainable means a new tourism, far away from the conventional tourist destinations, slow mobility, special attention to the relationship between tourism and nature, in order to realize a new equilibrium between man and nature, following strategies of harmony and respect of environment. It aims to promote cultural, historical and artistic peculiarities of the territory.

People run away from the most crowded tourist destinations, and Green Tourism is able to offer something easy, back-country, natural reserves, parks, cycling routes and trekking paths. Investments in Green Tourism, are something new and positive for Italian tourism market innovation. Useful interventions can be done promoting and qualify natural landscapes, rural atmospheres, artistic and archaeological heritage and local gastronomic tradition.

This innovative tourist offer brings hospitality business to get specialized and to increase facilities dedicated to the tourist target interested in sport and wellness holidays. Its target is constantly increasing both, in age range and social rank. Of course the main purpose is to increase tourist flows, splitting arrivals in all seasons and diversifying the offer following the rhythms of the seasons.

The sustainable tourism enriches small countrysides and creates new professional jobs, tied to the planning, the realization, the promotion and then the management of ecotourism, cyclotourism and green tourism business. From the north to the south of Italy, the most important sustainable tourism plans are born, to create new tourist flows, where the conventional mass tourism has no interest and have been financed by European Found for the valorization and the recovery of national heritage.

The tourists of the green are constantly increasing and appreciate the idea to move by foot or by bicycle. In order to answer to these new trends, hospitality structures increase the services to the customers, offering bicycle for rent, expert guides for single or groups, distributing brochures about cycling maps and routes, availability of specialistic laundry for sportswear.

All hotels take care about good food, sport menus and always assure rich biological meals, in season and OGM free.

The modern society of the consumptions needs to slow down and to simplify daily life, the Italy Bike Hotels have collected the challenge and offers their answer.

Copyright (c) 2008 Gayla Hodges

Natural Effectiveness” revolves around your personal traits and characteristics. If we can measure how you work most efficiently and effectively (and we can), and then focus leadership around those characteristics and strengths, amazing things can happen. This is the core of our Natural Effectiveness” philosophy. It is about defining the way you work most powerfully and positioning you to leverage your natural strengths to meet your goals. You don’t have to figure out how to be someone else. All you have to do is be your most efficient and effective self, and it will give you tremendous power to lead, achieve and develop.

At Change Agents we measure natural effectiveness based on four basic traits: The take-charge trait The people trait The pace trait The structure trait.

Based on your highest trait, you will likely approach building and sustaining strategic momentum in certain predictable ways.

If your highest trait as a leader is the take charge trait, you might approach your team as the General. This is not to be confused with a dictator. But your tendency will likely be to direct, deploy and conquer. Remember, you can fight some of the battles on your own, but you will need all of your troops to win your vision. You are looking for and trying to inspire allegiance to the vision and the strategy, not necessarily to you, yourself, personally. You must remember that people provide the energy for your campaign. If you ask them to salute, it may make them tense and less energetic and committed to the cause.

If your highest trait as a leader is the people trait, you will automatically build a team. You will connect with people individually, in small groups, and corporately to share your passion and inspire them to want to seek the vision you outline or the future you envision. You will draw word pictures that explain what it will be like when you achieve the vision. Two things that are critical to your success are that you listen and that you take appropriate actions when necessary. Some visionary leaders have failed because they were considered all talk and no action. The key is not to let your enthusiasm overcome your good sense.

If your highest trait as a leader is the pace trait, you will likely lead through encouragement. You will spend more time encouraging action than you do in pushing for results. Your strength is your ability to stay the course. Another plus for you is the patience you have when things don’t go as you planned. Giving people permission to be human and make mistakes allows for creativity and innovation. Meeting deadlines can be a pitfall for you. It is critical that your team trust you. You build that trust by doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it.

If your highest leadership trait is the structure trait, you will likely use systems and processes as the highways to your strategic goal. Effective systems and processes are critical supports in any strategic effort. Remember: people need to know why they are being asked to follow a certain system or process. The best way to engage them is to allow them to create or redefine the systems and processes they need to achieve the results you need.

As you build your strategy-focused Naturally Effective” organization, you will want to engage the strengths and talents of every person on your team. The bottom line in using your natural effectiveness” to maintain strategic momentum is this: work from your strengths, employ and leverage the strengths of others, and that will help you sustain your strategic momentum.

Global warming sceptics seem to have gone rather quiet recently. Whether you’re a believer or not, sustainable practices and carbon counting are here to stay; and like it or not, the climate is changing and our lives are going to have to change with it.

However, there has been much controversy over the global warming theory. For years, many people, including some at governmental level (most famously the Bush administration), simply denied global warming was a reality. The sceptics have since greatly diminished as the evidence has grown overwhelmingly and there are now very few who still maintain that the climate isn’t changing rapidly.

However, some companies have been accused of using climate change and other environmental issues as a “greenwashing” exercise. The term is used to describe organisations that put more time or money into advertising their green credentials, than actually carrying out green practises. Examples include changing the name or label of a product (for example, using the images of a pristine forest on a bottle of bleach), or making token efforts that provide little positive benefit to the environment, hoping it will win favourability in the eyes of the public.

However, whilst there are few companies around today who haven’t painted themselves in some shade of green, there are many who are genuinely striving to be more environmentally friendly – and not just for the publicity. Companies want to be seen as responsible and sensitive to the needs of the environment, and if it also makes business sense for them to switch to green practices, then they’ll do it.

So rather than seeing sustainability as a greenwashing PR scam, some companies are viewing green practices as an exiting new adventure requiring innovative new business models, fresh approaches and a change of business culture – and it’s these organisations who are likely to create not only a cleaner, greener future for the planet, but also a long term future for themselves.

To help those companies who want to make a change for the better, there are now some courses on offer, such as the Leading for Sustainability Programme, designed to help businesses executives, governmental agencies and anyone else who’s interested, to implement more environmentally sustainable changes within their organisation.

Ethical product development is now a major issue in the industry, and this trend includes the use and promotion of sustainable packaging formats. Ethical packaging is being driven by consumer environmental concern, retailer pressure and the development and promotion of manufacturer CSR. Retailers and manufacturers must be seen to be contributing to a greener and more sustainable way of life by the media, the industry and consumers alike. To remain competitive, retain consumer loyalty and be innovative, retailers and food and drinks manufacturers need to invest in ethical policies by either developing products in ethical packaging or promoting and reminding consumers to act ethically and responsibly.

Trends in Ethical and Sustainable Packaging is a new management report that examines the new innovations in ethical and sustainable packaging by category, region and material. It profiles major innovations within ethical and sustainable food and drinks packaging, including the latest packaging technologies and materials.

Discover the key trends impacting the ethical and sustainable packaging market and understand how these are changing packaging design with this new report…

This new report will enable you to

Gain insight into industry opinions on the usage and future of ethical and sustainable packaging through an exclusive survey of industry executives carried.

Create more effective competitive strategies with this reports detailed analysis of packaging technologies including recyclable, lightweight, biodegradable and packaging from natural sources. Evalualte the pro’s and con’s of these packaging innovations and decide whether these may be appropriate for your organisation.

Improve targeting and the effectiveness of your NPD strategies with this report’s analysis of Productscan data of over 6,000 ethical and sustainable packaging product launches between 2005 and 2008. Detailed analysis of leading ethical packaging types and insights into key regions and packaging materials.

Your questions answered…

To what extent should manufacturers and retailers be investing in ethical and sustainable packaging?

Which countries are driving NPD in ethical and sustainable packaging?

What are the most innovative forms of ethical packaging?

How will packaging regulation affect NPD in ethical and sustainable packaging?

How are key players, including Wal-Mart and PepsiCo investing in ethical and sustainable packaging?

What is driving the trend of ethical and sustainable packaging?

Some key findings from this report…

Packaging from natural sources is a key ethical innovation. Other leading innovations include biodegradable, lightweight and packaging made from recycled sources.

There has been an increase in the share of food and drinks launched in ethical packaging between 2004-2007. Within this share recyclable took the greatest share with 89.5% in 2007. However the largest growth was seen in biodegradable packaging and packaging made from recyclable materials.

53.5% of industry executives believe that recyclable packaging will be significantly important or the most important ethical packaging innovation over the next 5 years. 37.5% believe reduced packaging will be the most important.

Leading retailers are investing in ethical packaging initiatives. This includes Wal-Mart who has pledged to eliminate all private label packaging waste by 2010, with a look to have zero packaging waste land filled by 2025.

For more reports of your interest, please visit the following link: http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research/Packaging.html

Or

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Employee engagement has been a strong contributor to the success of the businesses. However, Six Sigma initiatives are at a risk of losing on the efforts made due to downsizing in the last few months. Companies are facing the challenges of sustaining the energy and the resources to get the benefits of Six Sigma projects.

Additionally, Six Sigma initiatives are also losing the willingness of the people to work over and above the minimum efforts needed to keep their jobs. The intellectual capital that is the knowledge and ideas of the employees, which are the driving factors for many companies’ competitive edge, is also diminishing.

The combination of the two drives organizations’ efforts to provide product and quality service, customer satisfaction and profitability. Every methodology has a limited life span. In this competitive world, companies are trying to find magical solutions to solve the business problems.

Six Sigma initiatives to be successful and consistent need personal commitment and team effort. It needs the leadership’s effort and commitment to the projects through their actions. At the level of the organization the company should create a corporate culture that instigates long term customer loyalty and shareholder value.

At the individual level, the driving factor is increasing employee engagement by assisting people to fulfill personal values and goals through work environment. Employee engagement comes from empowerment, respect and recognition of achievements, personal development, creativity, economic security, family security and enjoyable relationships with co-workers.

Business leaders need to understand the need to develop strategies to improve employee engagement. Six Sigma leaders have to consider and plan their initiatives accordingly. The contribution and involvement of all the employees is needed to engage them for the desired cultural change. People get engaged when they believe that their involvement is making a difference for them as well.

A Six Sigma training session is not enough to encourage the involvement of the employee in the Six Sigma project, nor is the participation of relevance if the project goes on for moths without any solutions.

Organizations have to take a few measures to increase the employee engagement and get the involvement of even those on the sidelines. Improving strategies based on a few principles can facilitate this.

Simplify

Employees should be able to put their ideas into actions with the support of the managers. This should be possible in not more than one meeting, for employees to understand the relevance of their involvement.

Confident Actions

Employees and managers should feel comfortable to offer ideas that may be in contrast to the existing systems. Small teams with meaningful assignments and clear criteria allow the employees to take confident steps to innovate within limits.

Faster Management Decisions

Management has to ensure that they make decisions quickly on matters that do not need any more than a management improvement. This motivates employees to understand management’s readiness to changes in the project.

Leadership commitment should be reflected through strategic actions, progress review and personal behavior of the management. The sharing of ideas from experience can be a motivating factor.

Speed Everything Up

The faster the real results are achieved the more the people would stay in the project. If there are gains in the change game then would the employees be ready to stay.

All Six Sigma professional have to think in take into consideration this current scenario to sustain the results of the Six Sigma project. Employee engagement is important for sustenance.

A little over three decades ago, Bruce Henderson, the Boston Consulting Group’s founder, warned managers, “The majority of products in most companies are cash traps. They will absorb more money forever than they will generate.” His apprehensions were entirely justified. Most new products don’t generate substantial financial returns despite companies’ almost slavish worship of innovation.

According to several studies, between five, and as many as nine, out of ten new products end up being financial failures. Even truly innovative products often don’t make as much money as organizations invest in them. Apple Computer, for instance, stopped making the striking G4 Cube less than 12 months after its launch in July 2000 because the company was losing too much cash on the investment. In fact, many corporations make the lion’s share of profits from only a handful of their products. In 2002, just 12 of Proctor & Gamble’s 250-odd brands generated half of its sales and an even bigger share of net profits.

Yet most corporations presume that they can boost profits by fostering creativity. During the innovation spree of the 1990s, for instance, a large number of companies set up new business incubators, floated venture capital funds, and nurtured intrapreneurs. Companies passionately searched for new ways to become more creative, believing that returns on innovation investments would shoot up if they generated more ideas.

However, hot ideas and cool products, no matter how many a company comes up with, aren’t enough to sustain success. “The fact that you can put a dozen inexperienced people in a room and conduct a brainstorming session that produces exciting new ideas shows how little relative importance ideas themselves actually have,” wrote Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt in his 1963 HBR article “Creativity Is Not Enough.” In fact, there’s an important difference between being innovative and being an innovative enterprise: The former generates lots of ideas; the latter generates lots of cash.

For the past 15 years, we’ve worked with companies on their innovation programs and commercialization practices. Based on that experience, we’ve spent the last two years analyzing more than 200 large (mainly Fortune Global 1000) corporations. The companies operate in a variety of industries, from steel to pharmaceuticals to software, and are headquartered mostly in developed economies like the United States, France, Germany, and Japan. Our study suggests there are three ways for a company to take a new product to market. Each of these innovation approaches, as we call them, influences the key drivers of the product’s profitability differently and generates different financial returns for the company.

The approach that a business uses to commercialize an innovation is therefore critical because it helps determine how much money the business will make from that product over the years. In fact, many ideas have failed to live up to their potential simply because businesses went about developing and commercializing them the wrong way.

“Innovating for Cash”, James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin, Harvard Business Review, September 2003.