Frito Lays - Kurkure - Lateral Thinking
India: The local fare offers a wide variety of snack options, ranging from roasted banana wafers and soya chaklis (crispy savory spirals) to samosas (pastries filled with potatoes/peas). These “Namkeen” (snacks) are typically eaten as a side dish with meals or make great accompaniments to tea, coffee and other beverages. Of course, these snacks vary by region, with each having its own “special” recipe. The snack food industry in India is highly fragmented, with the market dominated by made at home snacks or savories sold by local vendors. Because of expanding nuclear families and an increase in the number in female professionals, India has witnessed a consumer [want] snack foods that are ready-to-eat snacks. Today, Indian consumers [want] snack foods that are portable, hygienic and a ready substitute for hot snacks.
Snacks like biscuits and potato wafers and Indian savories like lachha (fried potato sticks) were already available in the packaged format, but Frito lay India (subsidiary of PepsiCo) decided to find a niche in the market, by offering a product with a unique shape and taste. In 1999, the company (already in the market with its flagship brand Lay’s) launched Kurkure (“Crunchy” in Hindi) This idea was generated by the Frito lays team at Lateral Thinking Session conducted by Dr Sunil Gupta with one of the problem focus being a production problem of reducing broken and curly pieces which were machine rejects. Instead of getting the participants to try harder in solving the problem of machine rejects Dr Sunil Gupta asked them to redefine the problem and convert the problem to an opportunity. The R&D team later on their conceived the idea of deliberately creating curly and broken pieces that could be greater India snack food! And Kurkure was born!
A perfect case of change from vertical thinking to Lateral thinking!
TATA MOTORS (NANO) - Lateral Thinking
Tata motors deputed its R&D team led by Dr. Tambe, of the R&D team along with others, to attend a workshop on Lateral Thinking in Mumbai in 2005 facilitated by Dr Sunil Gupta. The focus was on learning the tools of Lateral Thinking and applying the ideas in developing a new car for Tata Motors. The car was proposed to be priced at under Rs. 100, 000 (USD 2000) as this was the dream of the chairman Mr. Ratan Tata.
Easy use of several tools led the team to generate multiple ideas. They challenged a traditional Motor car using the tools of Challenge, Random Word and PO.
Using Why C/B/A some of the ideas generated during the workshop included:
One wiper blade 7 arm instead of 2,
Spare wheel, jack and spanner as an accessory,
Reduction in one gear of the gearbox,
Change in the materials used for different parts/components,
Size of the car,
Removal of certain other accessories like cigarette lighter etc.
The team obtained primary ideas to work on using the tools of Lateral Thinking. The project at this stage was called “The Rs. One lakh car” (Rs. 1,00,000) and the brand name NANO was conceived much later without our involvement. The Car was launched successfully early 2009.
SKF - Six Thinking Hats
SKF are the world leading manufacturers of ball bearing sealing solution. In 2007 IDEAS trained 10 trainers on Six Thinking Hats and the trainers trained approximately 200 participants.
Subsequently FAT- CATS were established and 6 teams were given 6 focus areas, one each. After 3 months the 6 teams produced 10, 111 ideas and 253 ideas were approved for implementation. The teams used Six Hats and Lateral Thinking tools to generate ideas.
An Idea tracker was invented and used to track progress of each team.
In May 2009, phase 3 of the innovation initiative concluded with 365 ideas presented bi six teams. But this time the reject rate of ideas was a mere 1.8%, suggestive of the treatment of ideas and the logic behind the ideas. All ideas produced were with the Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking hats methodologies.