Does creativity pay?

Does Creativity Pay? 

I spend so much of my time working with businesses who embrace creativity that I sometimes take for granted that everyone understands the business case for what I do.

From time to time I am reminded that this is not true when a potential client, having heard about all the ways that I can inject a creative spirit in to their workforce, asks the obvious question “Why would we want to do this?”

So, I made it my job to do the research for them and be able to deliver a compelling case. A number of case studies come to mind, and they might surprise you:

Case study 1 - SAS
SAS, the largest privately owned software company in the world, has been in the Fortune 20 Best Companies To Work For list every year it’s been published. The employee turnover rate is 3-5%, compared to an industry average of 20%, the subscription renewal rate for their products is 98%. And the company has seen 28 years of revenue growth. It claims that one of the primary reasons for its success is that over the last 3 decades it has worked to remove obstacles to creativity.

It has removed the distinction between “suits” and “creatives” and treats everyone as creative. It sends people to conferences and on courses so they can hone their skills and be exposed to new developments in their industry. 

It stages its own R&D conferences where the technical staff can share their latest ideas with non-technical employees. It encourages staff to write white papers and make suggestions for improvements. It removes impediments to work-life balance by providing day-care for children, allowing kids in to the staff canteen, providing health care services on site, and it doesn’t outsource job functions. The philosophy is that 95% of the company’s assets drive out the door every night. It wants to make sure they come back in the morning.

Case study 2 - Ocean Spray
Ocean Spray is a relatively small soft drink manufacturer in comparison with giants like Quaker Oats (who make Snapple), P&G and Coca Cola.

In order to compete they had to think differently about differentiation. Instead of tampering with the drinks themselves, they had a brainwave and negotiated an 18 month exclusive license for the introduction of Tetra Pak’s paper bottles in the US. The paper bottles were an instant success. Market share shot up. At the same time Quaker Oats were focused only on their product. Lack of creative thinking meant they were so busy tweaking the formulas on their products that they forgot to look at other areas like distribution.

Case study 3 - CarsDirect.com
Back in the late 1990s, Bill Gross of Idealab had the idea of selling cars on the internet. At that time many dealers had websites but the sites were intended to draw customers to the dealership not to sell cars direct. He took on a CEO for 90 days, built a “just-good-enough” website and decided that if they could sell one car in 90 days it was a goer. He was willing to lose money on the enterprise. If he sold a car via the internet he would just buy the same model from a dealer, sell it on to the customer and make a loss.

In the first day the site had 1,000 hits and sold 4 cars. CarsDirect.com is now the number one online car dealership in the world.

Conclusion
I could have chosen three other just as interesting examples of companies who use creativity to set themselves apart and make money. I chose these because they prove different points.

The SAS example shows how organisational culture can free individuals up to be their best, enabling them to develop ideas which buck industry trends.

The Ocean Spray example shows how thinking differently about how to market products – it’s not what’s in the box, it’s the box itself – can transform the fortunes of a business

And the CarsDirect example shows how one, simple yet explosive idea can take off and change the way people buy the second most expensive single item they own.

I’ve said it many times – creativity is not a “nice to have”. It’s a must have. While your team or your organisation is doing things the same way they’ve always been done, your competitor is challenging the status quo. You don’t need a new product line or a new strap line. You need a new approach to innovation and creativity that infiltrates the whole business, at every level.