Interview With Damien Waller, Founder Of ISelect: Insights On Business Strategy And Innovation

Background of the Interview

The interview was with Damien Waller the founder of a health insurance comparison search engine iSelect. The interview was through a Skype video done on the 21st of September 2018 between 10:00-10:30 am with the owner. This interview lasted for thirty minutes and I was lucky to interview him because I have been one of his fans and followers on LinkedIn which made it easy for me to book the interview.

I will start by saying that I love people who have succeeded in business not because they had a better foundation but people who go against all odds by fighting and competing with others who have every resource at their disposal. The reason why I selected the individual is that I am one of his LinkedIn followers and I have been learning a lot from his entrepreneurial skills and posts on social media. Mr. Waller is a self-made business person whose background is scratchy, tracing it from the time he started off business to what he has achieved (Broomham & Baynes 2018, pp. 4). Iselect is an online company that offers Australians an opportunity to compare different health insurance companies and make the choice that they feel fits their needs. However, the company has expanded its business beyond health insurance to include mortgages and aged care (ISelect 2018, pp. 3). As from his words, business is not easy but if one is smart and chooses the right niche that you fit then you can succeed. This means that business requires foresight and strategic abilities to make the right decisions every time, since in business, every decision that one makes as an entrepreneur will either make you or break you.

One thing that I will surely say I gained from this entrepreneur is that most entrepreneurs are not driven by the idea of making money but rather providing solutions to their clients. Driven by the need to ensure that people made the right health insurance choice, Mr. Waller went out of his way to assist those who lack the ability to do comparisons and find the opportunity cost that exists in the health insurance provider that they choose. This means that iSelect was designed to offer solutions to existing problems that people were not willing to solve. With the search engine, people can make comparisons between healthcare insurance providers and choose one that best fits their medical needs. Iselect plays a major role in the Australian market since it offers business solutions that allow them to make the best decisions through comparison thus allowing them to save. Therefore, the dream of Mr. Waller was to ensure that Australian got the best deal from their money when they compare the packages offered by different providers in the market.

Lessons Learned from Damien Waller

Further, what I learned from the entrepreneur is that the key to success is finding your business niche. There are many business opportunities that exist but you only need one of them and work hard on it. By picking only one line of health insurance, iSelect knew that the majority of the Australian population utilizes this service thus it will not be difficult to attract traffic and clients. Once the niche chosen has succeeded then other areas can come in. this is seen form what Mr. Waller and group did by specializing in one line of business before thinking of diversifying to other areas like mortgages, aged care and communications. This means that for a business to be successful, it has to be taken step by step from the initiation process until it succeeds.

What I will do differently from the interview

From the work of Mr. Waller, I have learned that the best way to succeed in business is to diversify your business operations so that you are not just running one line of business. This is the reason why Mr. Waller has been expanding the business slowly to include aged care. The best way to succeed in business is the diversity strategy that allows a business to enter new markets by launching new products that suit the needs of the market. This means that when I venture into business in the future, I will have to develop a strategy that ensures a new product or market is launched and penetrated every year. Since competition is high then there is a need to ensure that proper strategies are put in place for the success of the business. Diversity is a corporate strategy that relies on the application of the Ansoff’s matrix to determine the best strategy for launching the new product (Aichner & Coletti 2013, p. 24). Since diversification is a growth strategy, it will assist in ensuring the survival of the business.

The advice I can offer the entrepreneur

In my opinion, I will advise this entrepreneur to diversify more and enter other promising areas like mortgages and communications industry where most people lack information on the best deal that they can take. Since people only deal with marketers and sales people, they do not get the best advice on which of them offers the most efficient package. By expanding in other areas beyond health like the way the business is expanding into aged care, iSelect has a great future since most people will require the service when marketing business and personal decisions.

Personal Innovation Capability Audit

Section B: personal innovation capability audit

Mind tools offers a questionnaire with sixteen questions for assessing innovative capabilities and specific question areas that focus on innovative abilities. From the assessment, my score was 63% which falls within the innovative care but capability but with strengths in key questions that are part of the innovative process. This is because innovative capabilities are part of the business creativity process that individuals need to survive. The tests helped me think about my innovative capabilities by working on key questions that deal with creativity and innovativeness as shown in the separate score shit and analysis. The test questionnaire is divided into five main areas of preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation and elaboration. When the five steps are mapped into the innovation process, then my abilities are shown to have different abilities.

One ability that I have as an innovative person is finding problems or preparation. This is seen in my score for questions 6,9,11, 14, 15. This is from my ability to check the environment that I work in and find potential issues that need to be addressed. This means that as an entrepreneur, I am driven by the need for change and the desire to solve problems that exist in the community. For example from the iSelect case, Waller sought to provide a solution for existing business problems even if people were comfortable with the status. However, after the idea started working, then they realized that they can save a lot by comparing the services offered by different service providers and picking the one that meets their needs. This means that as an entrepreneur I must have the ability to scan the environment and identify the problems that exist and then develop an innovative idea that offers a solution. Further, as an entrepreneur the attitude that I have towards approaching issues matters in determining how I identify the solutions that customers face. One way that I can achieve this is through benchmarking where I am used to comparing what was done before and how it can be improved to make it more appropriate to the current situation.

Another ability that I have is incubation which is gathering information and investigating situations to determine the best solutions that can be adapted. Any creative person knows that the innovation process requires one to take time and think about the challenges that the business is facing and ways that can be used to improve the process (Koc & Ceylan 2007, p. 109). In most cases, this builds on the incremental innovation process where products are created as a result of knowledge that builds on existing resources. For example, if I was working in a firm, then the innovation process requires that I build on the existing information and resource in the firm to come up with the best solution that meets the requirements of the organization (Naqshbandi & Kaur 2015, 43). This can be solving a business need or developing another business idea to meet the needs of the organization. One ability that I have therefore as an innovator is the ability to search and build on existing information and develop an innovative business solution that meets the needs of the organization or the customer.

Areas of Improvement for Innovativeness

As an individual with innovative competencies, I have insight capabilities that lead to identifying and verifying problems and then looking for the root cause of the problem. Sometimes innovations can be new ideas outside the business domain or solutions to existing problems. For example, analysis techniques like CATWOE, drill down and five whys can be important in finding the cause of the problem (Verma, et al. 2014, p. 579). Therefore, insight is the ability to analyze existing issues within the organization and determining the best way to solve the problem. This skill allows me the ability to ensure that I am able to do a critical analysis of the situation to determine the best way of solving issues.

Further, I also have evaluation abilities that are useful in generating the ideas for solving the issues in the organization. For an innovator, I can generate ideas from reverse brainstorming or starbursting where I look for the best ideas that can solve the existing problems within the organization (Rahmani & Mousavi 2011, p. 286). Further, I also have evaluation abilities in working with techniques like brain writing, round-robin and the Charente procedure. Each of these techniques is used in generating ideas on how the innovation process can solve the existing business problems. To work well, each of the idea that I generate has to be benchmarked with the existing business process to determine if it meets the needs of the organization. Once the ideas have been analyzed it can be taken through other technical evaluation tools like paired comparison analysis, impact analysis or force field analysis. Once the process has been evaluated and regarded to meet the needs of the organization, it can then be implemented as a business idea or a new innovation for solving the existing business needs.

Therefore, my innovative capabilities are adequate since I possess some of the major attributes that can lead to organizational innovativeness and business problem-solving. However, I need to work on a few areas to make my innovativeness high and reliable within the organization. This process can be achieved by developing action plans and SMART goals that define what will be achieved and how each ability will be worked on to address entrepreneurship skills.

As an aspiring entrepreneur and business person, I have identified that I need to work on a few areas to improve my strengths and also address my weaknesses as a way of becoming a better innovative entrepreneur. The role of the planning process is to develop SMART goals and an action plan that will be used to achieve the intended goals. This means that I am focusing on improving my capabilities and ensuring that I have better skills for addressing my innovation and entrepreneurial skills. 

Table one: SMART goals

SMART goal	Strategies for achieving the SMART goals
a)    To address the innovation challenges that I have within a period of three months.	For strategic goal number one and two, I will utilize the services of a personal coach and mentor. The individual will act as my handler within the period that I will be working on improving my skills. The skill areas that I will mostly focus on are communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. Collaboration is relevant in linking with different organizational elements and working with colleagues to spark game-changing innovations (Christensen & Rayn 2003, p. 17). Critical thinking is an advanced reasoning and problem-solving skill that will transform the business problem into an idea and then an innovation.  This process also leads to my improved ability in processing issues, evaluation of data and developing solutions that meet the business needs of the organization. Creativity is the innovation process itself which originates from the vision and iteration of the organizational mission to achieve the desired results.  From my part, I have to continuously be creative to be able to meet the needs of the ever-changing business environment that I work in. Lastly, I need collaboration skills for working with others to improve or refine the ideas that I have. This allows different diverse perspectives to work together and generate progressive ideas that keep the business on the cutting edge. These skills will be worked out and developed through different learning processes to improve my strengths.
b)    To work on my strengths through developing key areas identified in the assessment of entrepreneurship and innovation skills at the end of the year.
c)    To work on ways of aligning my creativity and innovative skills within a period of six months.	For goal number three, aligning thinking skills with the needs of the organization requires changing attitudes and perceptions of the organization (Tidd, et al. 2005, p. 13). Since every organization has a way of approaching organizational issues, then my innovative ideas can only fit in the organization if the thinking is aligned to the business process. This requires a change in perception and how to approach issues that face the society.
d)    To follow up on the previous achievements and develop strategies for capitalizing on strengths for innovation effectiveness within a period of four months.	For goal number four, I will work with management to create an environment that fosters creative and innovative thinking in the whole organization. Isaksen & Tidd (2006, p. 19) argue that since innovation is not an individual task, then creating a conducive environment is one of the key drivers in having a creative workforce and ensuring that it meets the needs of the employees. This entails working with management to ensure that adequate resources are provided for innovation in areas of research and development for the new ideas (Conway & Steward 2006, p. 12). Further, this will include changing the design of the physical workplace to reflect a creative environment that inspires employees. Lastly, I will work with management to ensure that there are network and bonding within the organization increase communication and collaboration. According to Gerhart (2009, p. 243), ideas can only be generated in a collaborative environment where employees network and bond with each other. This strategy will lead to sharing of organizational problems which in turn leads to improved decisions.

According to Godin (2015, p. 579), different models have been designed to explain the way innovations take place in organizations or how they lead to the formation of new businesses in the market. Each of these models explains how the innovation process takes place and how it meets the needs of the individual or the organization (Chesbrough 2003, p. 7). One common theme that cuts across is that the innovation process itself begins with an idea which is then used to identify the business process that it can solve. The most common models of innovation are the linear innovation model, the technology push model, the market pull model and the phase gate model.

Table two: Models of innovation

Model	Overview of the model.
The linear innovation model	The linear innovation model is summarized under the stages of basic research, applied research, development, and diffusion. For this model, innovations are a result of scientific research where the process is driven by prior research within the organization to identify the areas that need to be developed (Rogers 2003, p. 14). Perhaps this is the common model of innovation in most organizations since resources are put in place to ensure that a team is formed to address the innovative needs of the organization. This can be a continuous process or a result of turbulent market forces. Godin (2006, p. 641) adds that some organizations have research and development departments charged with the responsibility of analyzing the market and developing new ideas for the organization. On the other hand, Assink (2006) adds that this may be due to changing competitive advantage which pushes management to formulate a team for specifically creating a business innovation process to address the challenge. Despite the trigger of innovation, the process is linear and follows laid down procedures before the innovation is adopted. Vinding (2006, p. 509) adds that this model is widely used in organizations because it is simple, descriptive, assessable, predictive and timely. The model has a timeline for the innovation process that makes it easy for the organization to achieve the required process. However, it suffers bottleneck delays since each idea and stage has to be approved by the relevant team which may be resisted in case it leads to change in the organization (Tuomi 2002, p. 11). Such challenges make it difficult to implement the innovation process since there are delays in implementing the innovation strategy.
The phase-gate process/ stage-gate process	The model is based on the works of Robert G. Cooper with his ideas of front-end loading in projects. This model of innovation works well in project management where the innovation process is divided into distinct stages separated by decision points at each stage (Hine & Kapeleris 2006, p. 19). In this process, the continuation is decided if the relevant team or management in charge of the project approves for continuation. This means that the decision is based on forecasts and information available at the time by performing the risk analysis to determine the viability of the innovation. This also depends on the availability of resources for executing the innovation process and the organization has relevant competencies. This model works well in large scale projects for managing innovations. According to Cooper & Edgett (2012, p. 46), during the innovation process, gates provide assessment points for the project to asses quality, business rationale and determine the action plan for the project. This means that in the gate process, the innovation project can be killed, recycled, put on hold, given a conditional go or put on hold. This means that the project must have characteristics of fulfilling the intended business goal for the organization.
The technology push model	This model is based on the development of new products through research and development to improve on the existing ones.  this type of innovation is not researched since the innovation comes as a result of developing the existing product with the available technology to ensure that it meets the needs of the of the market (Brem & Voigt 2009, p. 353). For example, the Sony’s Walkman radio that existed in the past was not a result of research and development but rather was a result of the need for a portable radio cassette with simple microphones that made listening to music easily. So because one of the employees in the company complained to the president at that time Akio Morita, this led to the development of smaller radio cassettes that were easily portable. This means that push technology comes as a way of solving existing problems with the current technology rather than market research for a new product (Bishop & Magleby 2004, p. 9). For example, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow down the typist speed to avoid jamming if printers at that time but today it has failed to meet its relevance. Critics of this model argue that it fails to work after some time because it is not based on market research to analyze the future trends or anything that may make the innovation less useful. This is the reason why the rise of computers has made the rearrange of typewriter keys to the QWERTY ones less useful.
The market pull model	This model of innovation is based on the needs of the market, society or a particular section of the market. This can be the needs perceived by a certain entrepreneur or the issues may be articulated by the market itself. This model differs slightly from the technology pull because it has an exploration stage that focusses on understanding how the invention meets the needs of the market before it is launched as an invention (Salavou 2004, p. 35). This is the point where most entrepreneurs come in since they seek to address the issues that the market faces and an attempt to find solutions for the issues faced. Verhaeghe & Kifr (2002, p. 409) suggests that this type of innovation relates to the invention of iSelect since it sought to offer a solution to the issues that the healthcare users lack. This model does not view innovation as a competitive strategy but rather as a way of offering business solutions to the consumer or responding to the needs of the consumer. Sometimes, an innovation in this model can be driven by consumer demands or identification of the challenges that exist in the market.

When analyzing innovation models to determine the one that fits Damien Waller and the development of iSelect, we need to look at the context of the innovation process to determine the reasons that led to the innovation. From the case of iSelect, the business process was designed to leverage consumers through solution building and targeting certain consumers. The search engine was designed to allow healthcare consumers to compare prices and the benefits that they receive from each consumer allowing them to make a rational decision on the best option to take.

The innovation of a healthcare search engine by Damien Waller was pushed by the need to provide healthcare users with a search engine that allows them to compare the healthcare providers that exist and choose to best provider that meets their needs. By inventing iSelect, Damien saw a market that had not been exploited and decided to explore the opportunity. This is what entrepreneurs do because they seek to provide solutions that consumers need or may not have realized that they need them. This innovation is different from other search engines like google and yahoo since they only allow one to search for information but does not allow them to make comparisons between the searched data.

Conclusion

Innovation is a business ability that entrepreneurs have that makes them different from the rest. By being an entrepreneur, one offers business solutions to the consumer that is as a result of existing problems or needs that the consumers face. Different models have been advanced to explain the way entrepreneurs come up with innovations that change the world. The market push model offers the best solution to the innovation process in the case of iSelect. This is because the innovation model seeks to explain how most entrepreneurs have come into existence by providing solutions to the business challenges that exist in the market or what other existing entrepreneurs have failed to see. What is common with such individuals is that they identify a niche that they want to invest in and develop a business solution that reflects the needs and challenges that the market is facing. This is why iSelect is slowly expanding from healthcare to other areas since the business idea also works in other sectors.

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