I coach a number of inventors whose ideas are cutting edge and exciting. One of the analogies I often share with them about getting an invention to the market place successfully is the idea of connecting an electrical circuit. All of the multiple components need to be in place and in the right order for the circuit to function and the energy to flow and do useful work.

As with an electrical circuit, all of the different innovation pieces have to be synchronized and working with one another to develop the end result. True innovation-driven growth can be delivered if you develop a roadmap that aligns the leadership team on key priorities and capabilities.

The energy of innovation requires what I’ve coined, “Completing the Circuit of Innovation™,” by plugging in a holistic intellectual asset strategy that goes beyond simply getting a patent. (To learn more about this, I recommend taking a listen to my Incite Innovation podcast about Completing the Circuit of Innovation. Click here and scroll down to #004.)

So in the spirit of “Top Ten” lists, here are the essentials for entrepreneurial success:

1. Start right! Have a clear definition of your idea or invention.
2. Find a coach or mentor to help you through the process and increase your chance of succeeding.
3. Keep searching. Conduct additional research of the art to better define the competitive landscape.
4. Develop Intellectual assets to strengthen your competitive advantage.
5. Define your territory. Learn what potentially can be owned by you or your competitors, and develop a vision for a pipeline of offerings and inventions.
6. Do your diligence. Due diligence and a defined market entry strategy will help exploit channels and potential targets.
7. Identify potential strategic partners and companies for your business proposition pitch.
8. Target the decision-makers. These often are the marketing people or innovation leaders with expansive networks who will open the doors and pave your way.
9. Develop partner relationships (and development licenses) with end users, equipment manufacturers and packaging raw material producers.
10. Find a coach with the expertise to help you establish reasonable royalty rates and a pricing structure as well as assist with commercial negotiations.

If you can check these off, you are well on your way to connecting the Circuit for innovation success!

IT outsourcing analysts have made big predictions for 2008 in the IT service market.

Experts expect the Indian rupee to continue its rise, keeping global IT service providers and customers on edge. Industry consolidation will continue. And as I’ve blogged recently, the offshore outsourcing market will continue to develop in India and beyond.
But will IT service providers figure out a way to provide more of the innovation their clients crave? Here are some top IT predictions from CIO magazine. (Click here if you’d like to peruse its pages—it’s a great resource!)

The Dollar

The continued decline of the dollar could be difficult for service providers to absorb. If the currency gap widens next year, expect Indian outsourcing providers to start indexing their prices to local salaries, promoting other offshore locations like China and Latin America, delay hiring of new staff, and building currency hedges into contracts.

Consolidation

The industry’s leading providers will gobble up smaller competitors in 2008. Tier-2 providers like ACS, Perot Systems and others have struggled, and as a result will become acquisition targets for larger providers or private equity firms. U.S.-based providers may be more likely to acquire midsize providers than their offshore brethren. Indian IT service providers, however, will continue to set up local delivery service centers in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Likewise, American and European service providers will continue expanding their offshore presence to remain price competitive.

Politics

Large companies will most likely avoid announcing substantial agreements or employee reductions during 2008. The result could be a backlog of unsigned agreements pushing into 2009, which could put customers in the driver’s seat during negotiations during this election year.

Looking Beyond India

While India will remain the market leader in offshore IT services, clients are looking outside the subcontinent for alternatives. Thus, 2008 will be the biggest year to date of expansion of IT service delivery capabilities beyond India. As I’ve said before, think Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, China, and to a lesser degree, the Middle East and Africa.

Flight from the Big Cities

In India and beyond, outsourcing hot spots have become oversaturated, so many providers and customers are looking to set up shop elsewhere. A shortage of talent is emerging in the top cities across India, local universities are no longer providing an adequate number of qualified candidates, and recent tier-1 city grads are increasingly wary of starting at the bottom on the graveyard shift because they’ve got other options. That’s creating movement into smaller, less saturated cities.
The same story is occurring in dozens of outsourcing hot spots around the world.
As a result some IT service providers are jumping to second-tier cities in an attempt to sidestep the rush to set up shop in a major metropolis.

Transformation

Customers want more than cost savings. They want access to great talent, vertical expertise, process maturity, flexibility, the great and powerful “value add.” IT buyers want an outsourcing provider who can actually enhance the client’s revenues and not just their own.
That means IT service buyers can expect to spend more on outsourcing services in 2008 while deciphering which market changes warrant the upcharges and which don’t.

Call Center Culture

Clients are demanding improvement in the call center turnover rate. One industry provider reports that it loses half its staff during the first 100 days of work. Providers are beginning to respond to the sweatshop mentality of call centers, by creating more “client-centric” solutions, such as unique scripts and efforts to connect employees to the client’s corporate culture.

Green IT

The “Green” IT service trend will take root and become measurable and attainable in 2008, as outsourcing providers desire to decrease their carbon footprints by creating greener data centers, investing in environmentally friendlier buildings and campuses, and developing eco-friendly processes and policies.

Outsourcing Buyers Get Smart

In 2008, many outsourcing customers will be entering third and fourth generation outsourcing contracts—either renewing, rebidding or restructuring their deals. Many of those IT organizations are making smarter decisions, negotiating better terms, demanding better business-driven metrics and getting better at outsourcing lifecycle management.

I predict there will be plenty of new entrants to the outsourcing market this year to challenge the veterans and create their own innovative structures.

I promised to update you on Innovationedge’s collaboration with Russia’s International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). As you know, we announced our partnership with InnovationPoint to work on a multi-year contract to help some of the most innovative minds in Russia –many of whom are former U.S.S.R. weapons scientists and engineers—to redirect their talents and bring new science and technology capabilities to the United States.

These scientists are highly skilled in biotechnology, agriculture, biomass, health care, nanotechnology and bioengineering. We formally launched our partnership with ISTC in Moscow last November, and have since had several opportunities to advance our mission. To date we have identified and set up meetings with key U.S. partners who could leverage the knowledge and capabilities of our Russian innovators. We’ve also developed marketing materials such as ISTC partnership brochures.

Last month, Innovationedge’s Jeff Lindsay, Director of Solution Development, traveled to Moscow for its Drug Design and Development Conference. The two-day international conference included reps from the World Health Organization, CDC, pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology businesses from Europe, the U.S. and Canada who shared their vision of novel therapeutics to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and cancer.

The symposium was an opportunity for us to get an overview of the biotech work of many Russian scientists. From the perspective of commercializing technologies, most of the technologies shown represented early stage exploratory work. When a biotech company has parallel interests and sees a fit with a particular chemistry being studied, it is a chance for licensing. Some of the capabilities, such as modeling of drug properties for improved activity, may have potential to find a variety of interested partners.

We are exploring specific projects and existing technologies in these areas so that we can make our efforts to find commercial partners. Some of these projects may already have enough data developed to create interest in drug companies that may wish to further explore and develop these exciting opportunities.

Here’s a great example of how Open Innovation partnerships deliver new opportunities for success. Avon Products, Inc. has teamed up with award-winning television host and best-selling author with Suze Orman. The renowned personal finance expert will serve as a Special Personal Finance Advisor to the company’s sales reps, offering them money management advice and strategies for success.

What a creative way to stimulate Avon’s corporate culture!

As part of the partnership, the company has created an “Ask Suze” mailbox feature on its intranet site so Avon reps and employees can submit personal questions to Orman for individualized advice and guidance. Critical financial management tools will also be provided to determine FICO scores, create a will and trust, evaluate insurance and guard against identity theft.

Orman will also be featured at key events, webinars and taped webcasts, which speaks to the needs of today’s tech-savvy “Alpha Mom.” (If you haven’t read any of my previous posts on this subject, click here and here to read up on who Alpha Mom is and how advertising gurus are cashing in on this key marketing segment.)

The partnership is the first of its kind in the direct selling industry, and was formed to advance Orman’s and Avon’s shared missions to provide financial empowerment to women–in this case, 500,000 Avon representatives in the U.S., and eventually to representatives around the world.

Avon had conducted a worldwide opinion poll of women in 16 countries in early 2007, and the findings overwhelmingly showed that worries about money were at the top of the list of women’s concerns. “Having enough money to live right and pay the bills” was cited by women as the number-one factor that would change their lives for the better.