RoundMap® : Framework 2 Vectors

 

Foundations for Ethical Prosperity: Harmonizing Equitable Profit Distribution with Responsible Growth

Within the RoundMap framework, Equitable Profit Distribution and Responsible Growth are pivotal vectors guiding businesses toward ethical prosperity. While profit is necessary, equitable profit distribution is crucial for long-term success. Meanwhile, growth is envisioned as a process of purposeful distinction, where we actively amplify positive and mitigate negative impacts. 

This approach to growth, aligning purposeful distinction with market demands and prioritizing quality over quantity, underpins our commitment to ethical, equitable, and sustainable business practices

Fostering Equitable Profit Distribution

Equitable Distribution of Profit is a core principle that guides the fair and balanced allocation of financial gains, extending beyond shareholder returns to benefit a more comprehensive array of stakeholders, including employees, customers, and the community. This approach underscores a commitment to collaborative empowerment and sustainable growth. 

By sharing profits equitably, businesses aim to reinforce the interconnected success of their ecosystem, aligning financial practices with their values of innovation, systems thinking, and sustainability. This strategy is not just a financial choice but a reflection of their ethos, ensuring that as the business prospers, so does the broader community and environment.

Responsible Growth Rooted In Purposeful Distinction

Purposeful Distinction in Growth represents a commitment to creating profound, significant, and uniquely outstanding change. It’s about achieving results that stand apart in effectiveness, sustainability, and positive influence. This approach goes beyond conventional metrics of success, focusing instead on the depth, quality, and uniqueness of the impact we create. 

Purposeful Distinction is characterized by innovative solutions, transformative outcomes, and a legacy of positive change that resonates within the community and industry. It embodies our dedication to making a difference and doing so exceptionally and unmistakably aligned with our core values of systems thinking, collaborative empowerment, and holistic transformation. 

In pursuing Purposeful Distinction, we aim to set new standards in how we contribute to society, demonstrating that success is not just about what we achieve but how distinctively and meaningfully we achieve it.

Equitable Profit Distribution

As a critical component of the RoundMap framework, the Business Model Matrix provides a nuanced approach to understanding and developing effective business models. This matrix is crucial in mastering the Profit-vector, which focuses on how a business can profitably create, deliver, and capture value.

Let’s delve into the essentials of the Business Model Matrix to explain the concept of the Profit-vector:

• Four Value Orchestration Direction:
  
  • Product Centricity: Focuses on superior product development and innovation.
  • Customer Centricity: Centers around creating exceptional and personalized customer experiences.
  • Resource Centricity: Focuses on offering resources as a service while maximizing their utilization.
  • Platform Centricity: Builds on creating platforms that facilitate user interactions and transactions.
• Four Value Positions:
  
  • Operational Excellence: Emphasizes efficiency, streamlined operations, and cost leadership.
  • Product Leadership: Prioritizes product innovation and is a market leader in product development.
  • Customer Intimacy: Focuses on bonding intimately with customers and understanding their needs.
  • Network Orchestration: Building and enhancing value through interactive stakeholder networks.
• Interplay of Strategies and Disciplines:
  
  • The Business Model Matrix suggests that any of these four value disciplines can be effectively integrated into the four business strategies. This interplay offers diverse strategic combinations, allowing businesses to tailor their approach to their strengths, market position, and objectives.
• Strategic Alignment for the Profit-Vector:
  
  • By aligning these value disciplines with the chosen business strategy, organizations can effectively navigate the Profit-vector. This alignment is critical to creating, delivering, and capturing value to maximize profitability and competitive advantage.

By considering these aspects, businesses can develop a comprehensive approach that balances innovation, customer needs, resource utilization, and platform dynamics to create profitable and sustainable business models. This alignment is crucial for navigating today’s complex business environments and achieving long-term success.

Responsible Growth

Growth is more than just numbers; it’s about excellence, resilience, planetary boundaries, adaptability, and the foresight to meet future demands. This is where the Business Vitality Matrix comes into play. It challenges us to be ready for change, resilient in the face of adversity, and continuously evolve to fulfill today’s needs and tomorrow’s aspirations. This matrix is the blueprint of our readiness to adapt, survive, and flourish – no matter what the future holds.

It’s crucial to understand that growth is not just about expansion; it’s about making deliberate, strategic choices based on the current maturity and market dynamics of your business:

• Strategic Expansion: This choice is about scaling up. But it’s not just about growing bigger; it’s about growing smarter. It involves enhancing your operational excellence and product-market fit or tapping into new markets and opportunities.
• Strategic Recalibration: Sometimes, the key to growth is realignment. This involves revisiting and adjusting your business model to meet evolving market demands and customer needs. It’s about staying relevant and resilient in a changing landscape.
• Strategic Agility: In a fast-paced world, being agile is crucial. This choice focuses on your business’s ability to adapt to market changes and innovate quickly. It’s about being flexible and responsive, ready to pivot when necessary.
• Strategic Optimization: When growth seems to plateau, it’s time to optimize. This involves refining and improving your current operations and offerings, focusing on quality over quantity. It’s about doing better things, not just doing things better.

Aligning Strengths: The Path to Collective Success

The journey to success is a confluence of aligning our strengths across both matrices. By mastering our business model for profitability and nurturing our ability to grow and adapt, we set ourselves on a path that’s not just about surviving but thriving. In this alignment, business vitality keeps us on track, focused, and perpetually moving forward. 

Incorporating Positive Inquiry further enhances this path, enabling us to uncover and leverage our collective strengths, imagine new growth opportunities, and co-create a profitable but also vibrant and sustainable future.

Embrace the Journey

As we chart our course through these positive, equitable, and sustainable twin vectors of business, let’s commit to aligning our strengths, refining our models, and seizing growth opportunities. This path isn’t just about survival. It is about crafting a legacy of innovation, resilience, and collective success. Let’s uncover and harness our full potential, envisioning new horizons of prosperity and impact. Join us on this transformative journey to redefine success and thrive together in a rapidly evolving business landscape.

We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.

Edward O. Wilson

https://tinyurl.com/2f5wppam

The concept of a strategy pyramid

 

The concept of a strategy pyramid is a framework used by organizations to align their actions with their core values, vision, and mission. It helps in prioritizing and organizing key elements of a company's strategy.  By following the strategy pyramid, companies can ensure that their actions are aligned with their core values, vision, and mission, leading to a more coherent and effective strategy.

It also provides a framework for decision-making and helps in communicating the company's strategy to stakeholders.

Here's a breakdown of each level of the strategy pyramid:

Core Values: At the base of the pyramid are the core values of the company. These are the fundamental beliefs and principles that guide the organization's behavior and decision-making. Core values define the company's culture and are the foundation upon which the rest of the strategy is built.

Vision: The next level of the pyramid is the company's vision. This is a statement that describes the desired future state of the organization. A clear vision provides direction and purpose, motivating employees and stakeholders to work towards a common goal.

Mission: Above the vision is the mission of the company. The mission statement articulates the purpose of the organization, its reason for existence, and the value it provides to its customers and stakeholders. It answers the question, "What do we do and why do we do it?"

Strategic Objectives: The next level of the pyramid consists of strategic objectives. These are specific, measurable goals that support the company's mission and vision. Strategic objectives help in translating the vision into actionable steps and provide a framework for decision-making and resource allocation.

Actions & KPIs: At the bottom of the pyramid are the actions and key performance indicators (KPIs) that are used to track progress towards the strategic objectives. Actions are the specific initiatives and projects that are undertaken to achieve the strategic objectives, while KPIs are used to measure the success of these actions.

Core Principles of the Integrated Business Framework. 8 Strategic Augmentation

 

RoundMap® harnesses advanced technology, such as AI and data analytics, to enhance the decision-making process and governance. This tech-friendly approach allows organizations to adapt to dynamic markets continually, standing resilient amidst profound market changes, while never swaying from its foundational principles.

In an increasingly complex business landscape, where decision-making often resembles navigating through a labyrinth in the dark, RoundMap’s augmentative principle emerges as a beacon of clarity and strategic foresight. This is not merely about data nor solely about intuition—it’s about fusing the two into a harmonious continuum that equips leaders with unparalleled vision. Imagine possessing a 360-degree, panoramic understanding of your organization, including the subtleties of culture and the concrete performance metrics. Now, realize that with RoundMap, this isn’t a lofty dream; it’s an attainable reality.

Our augmentative principle profoundly transforms how executives view and understand their business world. With the aid of 48 Thinking Caps, RoundMap systematically and intuitively maps out the ever-shifting dynamics of your enterprise, focusing not just on strengths and challenges but also on boundless opportunities that often lie hidden in plain sight. This multi-dimensional perspective is more than a tool—it’s a philosophy that blends expansive thought and cutting-edge technology that transcends traditional boundaries.

Through the fusion of augmented intelligence and generative chat agents, RoundMap lays out a vibrant tapestry of insights that range from culture to strategy, from purpose to execution. This is the new compass for today’s visionary leaders—a compass that doesn’t just point north but illuminates all directions, encouraging informed and emotionally intelligent decision-making. It invites you to go beyond merely reacting to challenges, urging you to proactively shape your organization’s future, embody an EQuitability ethos, and enrich your enterprise’s collective human experience.

As you explore this principle further, may you find both the enlightenment and the courage to lead from the whole as a symphony conductor who orchestrates an ensemble of various talents into a unified, captivating performance. Welcome to a new paradigm of leadership and decision-making. Welcome to RoundMap’s Augmentative Principle.

Application

The RoundMap® framework, a comprehensive and unified approach encompassing every facet of business, from strategic planning to client interaction, is an invaluable tool for organizations. RoundMap® guides strategic decision-making by integrating customer insights, market analysis, and goal establishment. This fosters a holistic understanding of business operations, cultivating cross-functional collaboration, distributive leadership, and consent-based decision-making. 

RoundMap’s Storycasting method ensures consistent and impactful messaging to stakeholders, while its delineation of leadership roles and responsibilities fuels leadership development and alignment with organizational goals.

Operational functions like marketing, sales, and customer service are streamlined within the framework, enhancing operational efficiency. 

RoundMap® encompasses change management and innovation strategies, assisting organizations in navigating transitions and uncovering growth opportunities. By furnishing measurement metrics and key performance indicators aligned with business goals, RoundMap® empowers organizations to monitor progress and enact data-driven decisions. Its adaptive structure maintains relevance in dynamic markets, while its role in fostering organizational alignment cultivates collaboration and a shared sense of purpose across all organizational tiers. 

Ultimately, RoundMap® functions as a comprehensive roadmap, expertly guiding organizations through strategic, operational, and communicative pursuits with unwavering clarity and effectiveness.

https://roundmap.com/

Six Steps To Create a Simple Framework for a Complex Business Turnaround

 

By Tony Uphoff

Regardless of the age or size of your company, your model, or the market you serve, at some point, you will be faced with the need to execute a turnaround. While the need for business turnarounds is common, they are remarkably challenging to do successfully. Boston Consulting Group research shows that only 20% of business turnarounds are successful today, down from 30% in the year 2000.

Having helped lead the transformation and successful turnarounds of several businesses, I can personally attest that turning around a declining business is incredibly difficult. Reducing it to a simple checklist runs the risk of over-simplifying a complex, challenging endeavor. At the same time, there are frameworks to help you focus on the main drivers of a successful turnaround. One last upfront point: Turning around a declining company is not for the faint of heart. It takes remarkable energy, fortitude, and emotional resilience. Ok…now on to the framework

1) Demand, Capability, and Margin

A primary reason that business turnarounds have such a low success rate is that some businesses are beyond saving. I always start with three core questions:

1. Is there a clear demand for the product or service the company offers?
2. Does the company have sustainable differentiation?
3. Can the company do so at a reasonable margin?

In my experience, you have to be able to answer yes to two out of three of these questions or a turnaround simply isn’t possible. It’s also my experience that if the answer to the first question is no, then there really isn’t a business to turn around.

2) Resources

Do a deep dive into how the current resources of the business are being allocated. Inevitably, struggling businesses have a disproportionate amount of resources tied up in the declining, unprofitable parts of the business, which starves potential growth areas. Certainly, understanding access to capital is a critical assessment to be made in a business turnaround. Access to capital can be a detriment in a turnaround, however, allowing managers to ignore the underlying problems.

Most successful business turnarounds involve the reallocation of resources, not the addition of new ones. Start by determining where you can shift resources and redeploy them for a better return as opposed to trying to add resources to an existing business that is failing.

3) People

Simply put, your job as a business leader is to recruit, retain, and develop the best people you can and continually put them in the best positions for success. Do a careful review of the organization.

Does the business have the right people, in the right positions, with the proper systems to enable them to be successful? Where are the talent gaps? Is the business organized properly? In many struggling businesses, organizational planning has been forgotten, resulting in a dysfunctional structure that is sub-optimal.

4) Product

A core reason businesses fail is a poor or nonexistent product strategy. Buyer personas and simplistic buyer journey models no longer work. Today, a more rigorous understanding of your buyers’ “jobs-to-be-done” is required. This process, pioneered by Harvard Professor and author Clayton Christensen, is now being used extensively in product design and development. By starting with your customers’ jobs-to-be-done, you will develop a deeper understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve that will serve as a guide for delivering a product that meets their needs.

5) Process

In knowledge work, creating, refining, and managing process is the key to generating scale. In analyzing failed companies, poor or sub-scale processes are often one of the main reasons for failure. The process can be tricky to isolate and analyze, too.

Process management needs to be a core competency in any successful turnaround. The best way to analyze process improvement is to look at your customer’s experience from interest-to-invoice. As you do so, you will find bottlenecks, duplicative processes, inefficiencies, and processes that can be eliminated, automated, or improved. Companies that have been in a sustained state of decline become slaves to a series of internal processes that have become irrelevant to customer value.

Let me restate this to be clear: Any internal process that doesn’t ultimately benefit customers should be re-examined and cut out if possible. You will find that in turnaround situations, it is in the process details where culture may rear its head. You may hear: “This is the way we’ve always done it” or “Our customers expect us to do it this way.” One of my personal favorites is: “We tried doing it differently but it didn’t work.”

In my experience, one of the quickest paths to business performance improvement is through process improvement.

6) Performance

Performance is a trailing indicator of the success of your people, product, and process efforts. Measure your success in these areas first. Then, measure and manage your performance.

One of the biggest challenges in declining businesses is that management gets caught up in the painfully obvious. The business is declining as opposed to focusing on the leading indicators that will help answer the question of why and what can be done about it. Set clear, measurable, and achievable performance metrics.

Many business turnarounds fail before they start based on management setting unrealistic performance metrics that the team doesn’t buy into. My recommendation is to organize your turnaround performance metrics around three key measurements:

1. Performance against budget
2. Performance against the previous year
3. Performance against a goal, if relevant

Beware of getting caught up in vanity metrics. In struggling companies, in an effort to find something to celebrate, managers can get caught up in tracking metrics that really don’t matter. Focus myopically and only on metrics that matter, set them realistically, communicate them openly, and celebrate success milestones along the way.

Final Thoughts

Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in four successful turnarounds and learned some valuable lessons along the way. Most of them, I learned the hard way! Helping to lead a successful turnaround is an invaluable career experience and one that every C-level executive has had or will have to go through.

https://tinyurl.com/bpa9z5za

Core Principles of the Integrated Business Framework. 7. Distributed Leadership

 

RoundMap® adopts a forward-thinking stance towards leadership, endorsing a distributive model that juxtaposes traditional hierarchical structures. This paves the way for the distribution of decision-making responsibilities, fostering empowered and agile teams.

Embracing Distributed Leadership: Transformation Through Empowerment

The dawn of the information age brings with it complexity and dynamism that conventional hierarchical leadership structures can struggle to navigate effectively. The need for more fluent and adaptive leadership methods arises. One approach gaining significant traction is Distributed Leadership, a model emphasizing collaboration and decentralizing authority instead of sticking to rigid hierarchies. This model sees leadership as diffuse and spread across different organizational members based on expertise, not titles.

The DNA of Distributed Leadership

Distributed leadership breaks free from the convention where leadership is vested in a single authoritative individual or a top-tier executive team. Instead, it celebrates the idea that every team member, endowed with a unique assortment of skills, knowledge, and experience, can contribute to steering the organization. This innovative approach to leadership empowers individuals across all levels of the organization, nurturing a culture of shared responsibility, engagement, and ownership.

Pillars of Distributed Leadership

Embedded in the fabric of distributed leadership are several key principles:

• Autonomy: Autonomy fosters an environment where employees feel they can take initiative and operate independently. In the distributed leadership model, empowered team members can wield their authority and tap into their unique skills to contribute remarkably to their organization’s growth and success.

• The Power of Collaboration: Distributed leadership builds upon the concept of “distributed cognition,” suggesting that intelligence and understanding expand when we interact with people, tools, and routines. Thus, effective leadership practice becomes a concert of interactions among leaders, followers, and the context over time.

• Flipping the Hierarchy: A significant departure from traditional models, distributed leadership presents an ‘inverted hierarchy.’ This inverted pyramid pushes power and influence out and down, fostering an accessible leadership ecosystem with formal and informal leaders interspersed across the organization.

• Shared Decision-Making: In distributed leadership models, decision-making is a collective journey. It encourages all members to participate, facilitating a shared sense of ownership and responsibility, and cultivating a genuine democratized workplace.

• Flexibility: Flexibility leads to versatility in a distributed leadership model. Adaptable leadership styles working symbiotically with the demands and nuances of different situations allow various individuals to emerge as leaders when their expertise meets the requirements (source).

The Distributed Leadership Advantage

By fostering a distributed leadership model, organizations stand to gain in multiple dimensions:

• Increased Engagement: Since it empowers employees at all levels, distributed leadership increases engagement and commitment.

• Boost in Innovation: With diverse individuals stepping into leadership roles, their unique perspectives can lead to innovative solutions and strategies.

• Motivated Workforce: Emphasizing shared responsibility and collective success, this model can significantly enhance team morale and motivation.

• Accommodating to Complexity: As organizations grow and become more complex, distributed leadership can accommodate that complexity by distributing decision-making and leadership responsibilities.

• Resilience During Change: During periods of organizational change, a distributed leadership approach can help maintain stability and continuity by scattering authority throughout the organization.

Parting Thoughts

Distributed Leadership presents a paradigm shift in organizational stewardship, encouraging organizations to embrace adaptation, collaboration, and democratization as critical elements of success in today’s complex business landscape. Its principles serve as a guide for leaders to understand and navigate this transformative journey. By integrating this approach, businesses can foster a dynamic, empowered, and engaged community, equipped to navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities of the modern world. In a world of distributed work, matching it with distributed leadership creates a symphony of productive harmony, leading organizations to new horizons.

Edwin Korver

https://tinyurl.com/36adkshj

Innovation Pipeline

 

By Gennaro Cuofano

The Innovation Pipeline is a systematic approach to managing the innovation process within an organization. It serves as a structured pathway that guides the development of new ideas, concepts, and innovations from their initial conception through various stages of development, testing, and eventually, commercialization. This framework ensures that innovation efforts are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals and that resources are effectively utilized to drive growth and competitiveness.

Key Components of the Innovation Pipeline

The Innovation Pipeline consists of several key components, each serving a specific purpose in the innovation journey:

1. Idea Generation

The first step in the Innovation Pipeline is idea generation. This involves the systematic collection of ideas from various sources, including employees, customers, suppliers, and external partners. The goal is to create a diverse pool of potential innovations that can be evaluated for their feasibility and potential value.

2. Idea Screening

Not all ideas generated in the initial phase will be feasible or aligned with the organization’s goals. Idea screening is the process of evaluating and prioritizing ideas based on predefined criteria. This step helps identify ideas with the highest potential for success.

3. Concept Development and Testing

Once promising ideas are selected, they are further developed into concrete concepts. Concept development involves creating detailed plans, prototypes, and specifications for the proposed innovations. These concepts are then tested to assess their feasibility and market acceptance.

4. Business Analysis

In the business analysis phase, a detailed assessment of the proposed innovation’s financial viability is conducted. This includes estimating costs, revenue projections, and potential return on investment (ROI). The goal is to determine whether the innovation is financially viable and aligns with the organization’s strategic objectives.

5. Development

After passing the business analysis phase, selected concepts move into the development stage. Here, the innovation is built, refined, and tested extensively. This phase may involve cross-functional teams, prototyping, and iterative development to ensure the innovation meets quality standards and user expectations.

6. Testing and Validation

Innovation testing and validation involve rigorous testing, validation, and refinement of the innovation to ensure it performs as intended and meets customer needs. Feedback from user testing and market trials is crucial in this phase.

7. Launch

The launch phase marks the commercialization of the innovation. It involves the strategic introduction of the innovation to the market, including marketing, sales, distribution, and customer support. A successful launch is critical to capturing market share and generating revenue.

8. Post-Launch Evaluation

Even after the launch, the Innovation Pipeline continues to monitor the performance of the innovation in the market. Post-launch evaluation assesses customer feedback, sales data, and other key metrics to determine the innovation’s success and identify areas for improvement.

Benefits of the Innovation Pipeline

Implementing an effective Innovation Pipeline offers numerous advantages to organizations:

1. Strategic Alignment

The Innovation Pipeline ensures that innovation efforts are closely aligned with the organization’s strategic goals and objectives, helping to drive growth in desired directions.

2. Resource Optimization

By systematically evaluating and prioritizing ideas, the pipeline optimizes the allocation of resources, focusing them on initiatives with the highest potential for success.

3. Risk Reduction

The structured approach of the pipeline reduces the risk of pursuing unviable or poorly conceived innovations by subjecting ideas to rigorous evaluation and testing.

4. Continuous Improvement

Through ongoing post-launch evaluation, the Innovation Pipeline fosters a culture of continuous improvement, allowing organizations to refine and enhance their innovations based on real-world feedback

5. Faster Time to Market

Efficiently moving ideas through the pipeline accelerates the development and launch of innovations, reducing time-to-market and gaining a competitive edge.

Challenges in Implementing the Innovation Pipeline

While the Innovation Pipeline offers significant benefits, its implementation can pose challenges for organizations:

1. Cultural Resistance

Organizational cultures that resist change or are risk-averse may struggle to adopt the structured and iterative approach of the pipeline.

2. Resource Constraints

Smaller organizations with limited resources may find it challenging to allocate the necessary personnel, time, and budget to fully implement and maintain the pipeline.

3. Innovation Fatigue

Constantly pushing for new innovations without proper support and resources can lead to innovation fatigue among employees, reducing their enthusiasm for the process.

4. Overreliance on Metrics

Overemphasizing metrics and quantitative analysis in the pipeline can stifle creativity and prevent the pursuit of breakthrough innovations

Real-World Examples of the Innovation Pipeline

Several companies have successfully implemented the Innovation Pipeline:

1. Apple Inc.

Apple is known for its well-established Innovation Pipeline. The company continually generates and tests new product ideas, prioritizing those aligned with its user-centric design philosophy. Apple’s structured approach has led to the development of groundbreaking products like the iPhone and iPad.

2. Procter & Gamble (P&G)

P&G employs a robust Innovation Pipeline to drive product development and market expansion. The company actively collaborates with external partners and maintains innovation hubs to generate, test, and launch new products and brands.

3. Google (Alphabet Inc.)

Google’s approach to innovation is built on an effective Innovation Pipeline. The company encourages its employees to explore new ideas, develop them into viable concepts, and test them in real-world settings. Google’s “20% time” policy allows employees to spend a portion of their workweek pursuing innovative projects.

Significance of the Innovation Pipeline

The Innovation Pipeline is of significant importance in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape for the following reasons:

1. Sustained Growth

It provides a structured framework for sustained growth by consistently delivering new innovations that meet market needs and maintain competitiveness.

2. Risk Mitigation

The pipeline helps organizations mitigate the risks associated with innovation by subjecting ideas to rigorous evaluation and testing before committing significant resources.

3. Resource Efficiency

By prioritizing and optimizing resource allocation, the pipeline ensures that resources are used efficiently, reducing waste and maximizing returns.

4. Adaptability

Organizations that embrace the Innovation Pipeline are better positioned to adapt to changing market conditions, emerging technologies, and evolving customer preferences.

5. Competitive Advantage

A well-executed pipeline enables organizations to maintain a competitive advantage by consistently launching innovative products and services that resonate with customers.

Conclusion

The Innovation Pipeline serves as a strategic framework that guides organizations through the entire innovation process, from idea generation to commercialization. By adopting this structured approach, companies can align their innovation efforts with strategic goals, optimize resource allocation, reduce risks, and continuously deliver new and valuable innovations to the market

Related Innovation Frameworks

Business Engineering

Business Model Innovation

Business model innovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers

Innovation Theory

The innovation loop is a methodology/framework derived from the Bell Labs, which produced innovation at scale throughout the 20th century. They learned how to leverage a hybrid innovation management model based on science, invention, engineering, and manufacturing at scale. By leveraging individual genius, creativity, and small/large groups

Types of Innovation

According to how well defined is the problem and how well defined the domain, we have four main types of innovations: basic research (problem and domain or not well defined); breakthrough innovation (domain is not well defined, the problem is well defined); sustaining innovation (both problem and domain are well defined); and disruptive innovation (domain is well defined, the problem is not well defined)

Continuous Innovation

That is a process that requires a continuous feedback loop to develop a valuable product and build a viable business model. Continuous innovation is a mindset where products and services are designed and delivered to tune them around the customers’ problem and not the technical solution of its founders

Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovation as a term was first described by Clayton M. Christensen, an American academic and business consultant whom The Economist called “the most influential management thinker of his time.” Disruptive innovation describes the process by which a product or service takes hold at the bottom of a market and eventually displaces established competitors, products, firms, or alliances.

Business Competition

In a business world driven by technology and digitalization, competition is much more fluid, as innovation becomes a bottom-up approach that can come from anywhere. Thus, making it much harder to define the boundaries of existing markets. Therefore, a proper business competition analysis looks at customer, technology, distribution, and financial model overlaps. While at the same time looking at future potential intersections among industries that in the short-term seem unrelated.

Technological Modeling

Technological modeling is a discipline to provide the basis for companies to sustain innovation, thus developing incremental products. While also looking at breakthrough innovative products that can pave the way for long-term success. In a sort of Barbell Strategy, technological modeling suggests having a two-sided approach, on the one hand, to keep sustaining continuous innovation as a core part of the business model. On the other hand, it places bets on future developments that have the potential to break through and take a leap forward

Diffusion of Innovation

Sociologist E.M Rogers developed the Diffusion of Innovation Theory in 1962 with the premise that with enough time, tech products are adopted by wider society as a whole. People adopting those technologies are divided according to their psychologic profiles in five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

Frugal Innovation

In the TED talk entitled “creative problem-solving in the face of extreme limits” Navi Radjou defined frugal innovation as “the ability to create more economic and social value using fewer resources. Frugal innovation is not about making do; it’s about making things better.” Indian people call it Jugaad, a Hindi word that means finding inexpensive solutions based on existing scarce resources to solve problems smartly.

Constructive Disruption

A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics

Growth Matrix

In the FourWeekMBA growth matrix, you can apply growth for existing customers by tackling the same problems (gain mode). Or by tackling existing problems, for new customers (expand mode). Or by tackling new problems for existing customers (extend mode). Or perhaps by tackling whole new problems for new customers (reinvent mode)

Innovation Funnel

An innovation funnel is a tool or process ensuring only the best ideas are executed. In a metaphorical sense, the funnel screens innovative ideas for viability so that only the best products, processes, or business models are launched to the market. An innovation funnel provides a framework for the screening and testing of innovative ideas for viability

Idea Generation

Design Thinking

Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.

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