Innovation versus complexity: What is too much of a good thing? Explain in detail.

Based on Mark Gottfredson and Keith Aspinall talk about managing complexity.  Backing new innovation is easy because on the surface it adds considerable value to the company.  Upon a deeper look, the added complexity of these new innovations can add costs to the production line that outweigh the additional revenue.  Complexity creeps into a business through bad economic data, overoptimistic sales expectations and entrenched managerial assumptions.  Because of this, complexity causes business’ profits to flat line or even erode.  Once a company is able to balance on its innovation fulcrum, making sure it’s production costs of innovation don’t out weigh the added revenue, its next job is to stay there.

"  Customer Experience Turning Satisfied Customers into Advocates" – Dale Wolf, Editor

For instances , Marketing Innovation vs. Marketing Complexity

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 We all know the pressure to innovate, but all too often innovation really means more product line extensions or added features. There is the magic line that when we cross it all we have really introduced is complexity — for us, for the distribution channel, and for the end customer.

Mark Gottfredson and Mike Booker  (Wall Street Journal, December,) note that innovation often manifests itself as more choices which breed complexity and send cost out of control and profits downward. The solution, they suggest, is to take charge of what they call the "innovation fulcrum" — a balance between product variety and operational complexity. This balance utilizes a concept that manufacturers know as "mass customization."

Reveries Magazine cites a few examples of companies who customize their offerings by extending from a standard platform instead of making every offering unique. Take Starbucks, for example, where you can customize your latte by size, type of milk, temperature and flavors — but everything works off the same standard platform. Or HEB, the supermarket where every store operates on a standard model but tailors its offerings to suit local tastes. Or Honda, where you can have any kind of car you want as long as it is one of their build-combinations in one of four colors.

The "innovation fulcrum" essentially picks up where Henry Ford’s Model-T left off. Henry got it right by standardizing his offering, but missed when he made every Model-T black. Mark and Mike think companies need to think about what processes would like with one standard offering and then add back those options valued by attractive segments of your customer base. The secret, they point out, is to add only a single variable at a time and then trace the effect through the value chain. Henry Ford finally got it right by offering the Model A in various colors … but, of course, by then he was chasing competitors who managed mass customization faster.

Mark and Mike warn that today’s complexities begin with the product line. It is a result of incremental buildup of systems and mechanisms for managing complexity in the product line. Their advice is to "raise the hurdle rate by requiring a higher rate of return on new products" which they say both "makes it more difficult to arbitrarily add variations and boosts the innovation discipline."  They urge us to pinpoint responsibility for making innovative decisions as well as to track how the innovation fulcrum can shift over time. They conclude: "Companies that hit the right balance between innovation and complexity create more efficient operations and more profitable customer relationships."

Mass Customization Benefits and Opportunities:

Many manufacturers see mass customization as imperative to meeting profit, cost and delivery goals, while helping to alleviate competitive pressures. Cincom Systems provides industry-leading quote-to-order solutions that enable manufacturers to mobilize these mass customization initiatives. From reducing quote-to-order processes from weeks to minutes and driving down unit costs, to lowering the costs of sales, Cincom helps you increase sales effectiveness across all channels.

Mobilize product rationalization efforts to support mass customization strategies.

Increase configuration accuracy to ensure manufacturability.

Bring engineering closer to the customer and eliminate non-value-added activities.

Build products on-demand to customer requirements.

Integrate your front-office and back-office strategies for rapid order fulfillment.

Thank you for the invitation . You can see the full answer to your question  (innovation versus complexity) on these link

innovation versus complexity what is too much of a good thing

Let us Understand the Definitions of  Innovation and Complexity in the perspective of Business.

Innovation:

The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay.

To be called an innovation, an idea must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. Innovation involves deliberate application of information, imagination and initiative in deriving greater or different values from resources, and includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into useful products. In business, innovation often results when ideas are applied by the company in order to further satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers.

Complexity:

Organizational: Condition of having many diverse and autonomous but interrelated and interdependent components or parts linked through many (dense) interconnections. In the context of an organization, complexity is associated with (1) interrelationships of the individuals, (2) their effect on the organization, and (3) the organization's interrelationships with its external environment. How these interrelationships arise and how they enable the organization to evolve (by creating new organizational patterns and structures), is not well understood. See also types of complexity.

Physical: Extent to which spontaneous-order (self-organization) arises in a system (when certain critical requirements are met) and allows the system to make a transition from one state to a very different state. Superconductivity is an example of such complexity.

Since definition and relation of Innovation and Complexity are discussed and answered by many of the experts, I just want to put up one logic which explains requirement of both.

I don't want to come to a conclusion which describes which is more important, but my logic is if your problem is complex, it needs to be divided into small steps, analysed, brainstormed, test solutions and implement. Innovation comes as part of solution or analysis which may be simple or complex based on the best possible solution. 

Innovation versus complexity: What is too much of a good thing? Explain in detail.

Innovation is a new idea, or more-effective device or process. It can be viewed as of a better solution that meet new requirements.

If I related to HR then you recruit employees with a "out of the box thinking", high level of creativity and dedication to find solutions.

Complexity Strategy is used in the field of strategic management and organizational studies. This was and is an interdisciplinary theory that grew out of System Theory in the 1960,s, : to understand how organizations adapt to their environment and how they cope with the conditions of uncertainty. The theory treats organizations as collections of strategies and structures, the structure is complex, as they are dynamic networks of interaction, the individual and collective behavior is adaptive.Crucial element is that there is a constant change and that the organization learns to adapt.

Form a HR perspective  the methodology of "learning circle" is to organize and honor the collective wisdom of the group: to build, share and express knowledge thought a process of open dialoque and deep reflection around the issue or problem with a focus on a shared outcome.

Agree with your answer>>>>

I think the link in Mr.Bassem answer's covered the subject in full details. 

Thank you for the invitation ... innovation originally was to find means of unconventional solutions, and complexity caused by the accumulation of a large number of traditional obstacles and problems became something funky and simply that innovation is to overcome the problems in unconventional ways

full agree with details on link in my bro. bassam add on his answer

This is a good and useful question, I wish to find acceptable answer

Thanks for the invite, I agree with the rest of the answers