Category Archives: Innovation

How can a business differentiate without changing the product itself?

in competition, Innovation, Question-To-Innovate, Questions, Strategy

How can a business differentiate without changing the product itself?

Via Quora: What can you change in a business that is strong enough to differentiate the business from all competitors, but without touching the product itself?

For example,

  • GILT, changed PRICE but didn’t change product, and opened a niche for discounted designer clothes.
  • Phones International, changed the DISTRIBUTION MODEL of the mobile phone industry but it didn’t change the product (cell phones), and opened a niche for ‘single brand distribution.
  • The Book People, changed the TARGET CUSTOMERS, but didn’t change the product (books), and opened a niche selling books to corporate clients.
  • Adwords, changed the BUSINESS MODEL, but didn’t change the product (display ads), and opened a niche for ‘performance advertising’.

These are significant differences that not only differentiate the companies from all the others, but disrupted the market in some way.

What other variables can you change in a business in this way?

How are these variables called?

Where can I learn more about this?…

the customer experience is

What is customer experience in layman’s terms?

in Innovation

the customer experience is

I believe that business leaders should treat customer experience is an imperative. Yet, there are still some parts of the business world where “customer experience” is a new word.

With that said, I jumped on a chat with Kerry Bodine, co-author of Outside-In. A new book about why organizations should focus on customer experience, and how.

One of the challenges in understand what customer experience means, is understanding that there is a HUGE difference between customer service and customer experience. Most think that customer service is customer experience.…

innovation clarity

Create your own definition of innovation

in Innovation

innovation clarity

As part of my auditing process, one of the key questions I ask is: what was the most recent innovation in your industry?

Depending on how this question is answered, it will tell me a few things:

  • How this company both defines and perceives innovation
  • If they are focused on innovation
  • If they are keeping tabs on their respective industry

That question is followed up with a similar but less obvious question: who is the most loved in your industry and why?. This one tells me if they even care about delighting their customers. But it can also tell me if they associate customer loyalty with innovation.…

open innovation

Two free books on Open Innovation and Social Media by @lindegaard

in Innovation

open innovation

You know what’s cool? When you can get learning for free!

Open Innovation Guru, Stefan Lindegaard, is sharing his two latest books with you for free:

  1. Social Media for Corporate Innovators and Entrepreneurs: Add Power to Your Innovation Efforts –
    This is an interesting book because I also believe social media is altering the way organizations will innovate going forward. Here are some insights of what you will find inside the book – Click here for direct PDF download
  2. Making Open Innovation Work – Click here for direct PDF download

Be sure to follow Stefan on Twitter

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Disney cel animation

A powerful innovation breeding habit you can do right now

in Innovation

“We are tuned to think linearly – but the fact is, these are exponential times”.

And to think exponentially, we need to break out of our comfort zone and seek out new knowledge.

I’ve spent time in companies where they talk about innovation. Supposedly they fight for it. Funny thing is, I don’t notice any “innovation breeding habits” in display. And, if you ask them about those habits, the first one that comes up is brainstorming.

Sorry, but innovation work is more than just brainstorming around what you know. It’s about constant learning. And not so much as learning about the same topic, but going out an learning from people who are not in the same line of work as you. Learning about their domain, how they solve problems, what their challenges are, etc.

This is where seeds for innovative ideas born.…