It’s all in the timing
Creativity, ideas, innovation – are a heady combination that may sometimes turn the individual blind to other realities and considerations. A creative person ( let us call him or her – CP for short ) may just get carried away by the power of the idea and its ingenuity – the fact that no one has done it ever before !! …. Often, over confidence sets in and the CP brushes aside the due diligence prescribed. The CP is overcome by anxiety, that, if the idea implementation is delayed, someone else may beat him to the finishing line. It can be acknowledged that for an idea to be taken forward, there may be many checks in the checklist, and this article zooms in on just one of them – the timing.
It was 2010 that IIMB ( Indian Institute Of Management Bangalore ) embarked on a project to setup 15 Common Service Centers ( CSC ) in rural Karnataka. IIMB invited several Tech Companies including Intel, Cisco, Wipro, and a host of tech startups to be part of the collaborative innovation project. The idea was to introduce G2C, B2C and G2B services from the CSC at the Gram Panchayat level. Many innovative Web and Mobile applications were built as part of the Information and Communication Technology ( ICT ) intervention primarily in Education, Healthcare, Rural Development and Agriculture sectors. Most or all of the applications relied on broadband connectivity. Services such as Telemedicine demanded a stable reliable symmetric broadband of not less than 250kbps. But the broadband infrastructure in the rural areas was still maturing and wasn’t as such ready for such demanding real time video applications. While the apps themselves were ready from the logic and functionality perspective, the transport of real time video traffic through the internet suffered due to inadequate bandwidth. It was then concluded that the timing was not perfect as the broadband was not equipped enough.
Tech projects have a variety of features that determine the success or failure of the project and they are not restricted to just bandwidth adequacy alone. The Mobile device capability also mattered in the case of the CSC project. The Geographical Information System ( GIS ) app ran on a custom built handheld. The purpose was to use it to traverse the boundary of land holdings in order to estimate the area and also get a geo spatial representation of the holding. The custom built handset was expensive but inevitable for the project. Smartphones with GPS capability were not available then. But fast forward to today, and the same app would run quite seamlessly on smartphones available at much affordable costs. Again the timing wasn’t right - or so it seemed.
It is worth recalling how some businesses were early into the e-commerce space. The internet speeds weren’t good enough, the various frameworks and themes weren’t available, the shopping experience was not impressive, the payment gateway integration options were limited ….. but yet many ventured and quite a few had to exit, never to be seen again. Hence, irrespective of the segment, when timing isn’t right, the solutions would inevitably suffer from lower ratings and would stand the risk of being dismissed as being not feasible or rejected for not meeting the requirements. The impact of such a decree upon the innovative product can lead to a range of negative consequences. The main impact though would be to do with the adverse effect upon the psyche and innovative spirit of the creator, thereby, affecting his appetite to venture again.
So, it is rather crucial to get the timing right. It may not be a good idea to compromise with inadequacies just in the anxiety of getting the product out. After all a product is not judged only by its speed to market, but more so by how much it meets the requirements. A below expectation performance, leaves a certain impression in the customers, which may linger much longer to the extent that the brand gets smeared. Moreover, the idea itself may suffer and get rather unfairly dismissed as not practical. Just to draw up an analogy on timing ….. even in the game of cricket, if the timing of the shot by the batsman is not perfect, the ball doesn’t move as intended. It is believed by some that the timing is all about ensuring that the ball hits the bat in the sweet spot ( the middle of the bat a few inches above the bottom of the bat ). The batsman knows the speed and trajectory of the ball and times the movement of his bat in a way ensuring that the ball lands on the sweet spot of the bat. The sweet spot, in turn, ensures that the ball on impact races away at the maximum speed from the bat. This emphasis on timing allowed batsman, like India’s VVS Laxman, to bat effortlessly, effectively and ultimately – successfully.
It is all in the timing. We shouldn’t probably allow a powerful idea to fail prematurely, just because the tech is not ready. After-all, the idea and the use case can wait for another day – when hopefully the tech too is rearing to go.....
