Killer Innovations

The pressure for strategic innovation has never been greater. Today there are few clear boundaries separating industries from each other or one region from another, so new competitors emerge from unexpected places. Wal-Mart finds itself competing with Amazon.com one day, Home Depot the next, Ralph Lauren the third.

The challenge for businesses is to constantly re-define itself, its industries, its products, its services and its customers so that when competitors rush into its space – the business is already moving on to the next emerging opportunity.

However, most companies allow their present strategies, markets, products and services to blind them to imagining the future. Many companies miss great opportunities either due to failure to recognize early patterns or in the lag time between identifying the opportunity and taking action. Companies are quickly finding themselves caught in an innovation gap – the shortfall between a companies rapidly rising need for ideas/innovations and their inadequate supply.

By leveraging sources and tools that can help companies to spot these opportunities, they gain the ability to create breakout products and services on a more predictable basis. One approach that I have used is to start the process by asking a series of questions whose answers reveal truly insightful ideas for strategic innovation opportunities. The following are just a small sample of the questions that I have found to be useful to kick-off the “ideation” process.

Customer Intimacy – The ability to create a service/support experience that customers find compelling. Some sample questions could include:

- What assumptions in your service delivery are you making about your customer’s abilities?
- What would change if the opposite were true?
- What emotional, psychological, or status benefit do (could) people derive from using your product?
- How can you create a social or group experience with your product?

Product Leadership – The ability to create market leading products and services. Some sample questions could include:

- What other products/services derive from or are used with your product that could be combined?
- Who uses your product because of some benefit you did not foresee?
- What regularly used makeshifts can you capture in a product design?
- How can you capitalize on pop culture in your product offering?

Operational Excellence – The ability to create competitive advantage from improved operational efficiency. Some sample questions could include:

- What input, if reduced by half the cost, would allow you to cut your price by 20%?
- What are some of the basic assumptions under which your industry operates?
- What would change if the opposite assumptions were true?
- What external jolts have the potential to significantly impact the rules of the industry?

Over the years, I have captured a database containing hundreds of questions that I use to structure a session to search out unique opportunities. In a typical session, a structured process covering 20 to 30 questions specific to the unique needs and assets of a product division or group are used to help the participants break-out of their “old think”. From these questions, a pipeline of possible innovations is identified.

The goal is to create killer innovations™ - a significant and highly profitable departure from current offerings or practices that will be difficult to imitate.