Its not a failure it’s a learning experience!
Written for a soon to be published book on Innovation Delivery



Its often stated that 9 out of 10 new products fail, and academic researchers have claimed that it takes 3000 ideas to achieve 1 commercial success. There are so many definitions of what is new and what constitutes success or failure that it would be easy to challenge any of these findings but no-one will dispute the general belief that there are more failures than successes and that achieving real breakthroughs is difficult – very difficult.


But although it sounds like a Mother saying “don’t give up dear” as her child learns to ride a bike, each failure really does bring success closer. Scientists don’t expect every experiment to succeed, so they analyse the reasons for failure and try to correct them, its what empirical science does. Business however views failure like death, its career threatening Managers sensing failure hurry to disassociate themselves from projects, and rush to start something new to sound positive and confident about.


There is a lot of truth in the old saying that success has many parents but failure is a bastard!


I’ve seen test markets fail because a product manufactured in a pilot plant didn’t perform properly and yet despite an easy fix the whole test was junked. I’ve seen concepts bomb in research when changing just two words would have overcome the issue. I’ve seen strong purchase and repeat purchase scores discarded because they didn’t come in fast enough.


The management teams all knew the reasons for these problems and yet such was the fear, not so much of the financial effect of failure but of personal reputation, that no one did the obvious and identified the problem, sought how to correct it and re-launched.


No one wants to fail, its expensive and time consuming, just like developing and researching the idea was, so view a market launch problem as a step in the process not the last stage. Analyse what needs to change, change it and try again.


Failure gives you real world market experience and that brings the old 9 out of 10 fail metric down to much more manageable odds.


The sort of odds that careers and empires grow from not hide from!

Please let this be a failure!

Word reaches me from England that the country is in danger of returning to its "food is just fuel" roots.



The Brits invented the sandwich (you do know the story of its invention by the Earl Of Sandwich don’t you….he called for a food that he could eat whilst at the gambling tables).


Later retailer Marks & Spencer and their suppliers sorted out how to make, deliver and sell delicious sandwiches nationwide despite a 24 hour product life.


But now I hear that Booker, a major grocery distributor, has developed a 14 day sandwich.

Technically its classic gas flush packaging, careful choice of ingredients, no tomatoes or lettuce to make it soggy and an oat based bread that defies staleness longer.


Strategically it may offer business advantages, less waste and better on shelf availability all leading to a new profit opportunity.


Emotionally however I’m hoping its going to be a classic case history failure. Its food, not emergency rations, its about pleasure as well as nutrition.

Come on Britain, we’ve come so far, lets not go back to “the French live to eat but we Brits eat to live”.