Strategic Innovation: The Definitive Guide to Outlier Strategies

Strategic Innovation: The Definitive Guide to Outlier Strategies

by Liisa VÄlikangas, Michael Gibbert
Released September 2015
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 9780133980158

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Book description

GET TO THE FUTURE FIRST!

LEVERAGE STRATEGIC NOVELTY (SN) TO TRANSFORM AND DOMINATE YOUR MARKET

  • Become an “outlier organization”: recognize huge opportunities in novelty, and act fast and first

  • Listen for the tremors already building beneath your markets

  • Learn from winning “outlier” business models, organizational forms, markets, products, and services

    • Today, the companies that rise rapidly to dominance are the outliers. They’re radically novel where it matters: whether in business models, products, services, or some other key driver of value. Strategic Innovation reveals how to think like these vanguard organizations–and become one of them.

    You’ll discover how to borrow the lenses and insights of companies operating right at the edge of conventional industry dynamics and boundaries…where opportunities are underdefined, predictions unstable, and the greatest opportunities exist.

    Using linked case studies and a proven three-step methodology, the authors guide you through uncovering Strategic Novelty (SN) with explosive potential…executing quickly… and learning and tweaking relentlessly to amplify your impact.

    If you keep doing what everyone else is doing, you may succeed–but not greatly, and not for long. If you want to create, transform, and dominate your market, you need to think and act like an outlier. Learn how. Now. Before someone does it to you.

    Right now, all around you, there’s an explosion of new business models, new product/service categories, and new organizational forms. It’s a veritable Cambrian Explosion of business life, led by outlier organizations you’ve never even heard of. Many will remain practically invisible to the incumbents in their markets…until they suddenly explode into dominance.

    What do they share? A fundamental commitment to Strategic Novelty (SN). Now, in Strategic Innovation, leading innovation strategists Liisa Välikangas and Michael Gibbert show you how to leverage SN to become your industry’s winning disruptor.

    You’ll master SN through case studies from leading outlier organizations in areas ranging from 3D printing to crowd financing and resource-constrained innovation. Each case is original, previously unpublished, and based at least in part on the authors’ direct experiences.

    Through these cases, you’ll explore how each company’s story is playing out: sometimes in failure, but often in massive success. You’ll discover why incumbents rarely notice outliers in time, and how to keep it from happening to you. Perhaps most valuable of all, the authors help you extrapolate the likely impact of any novelty, so you can tell the difference between promising opportunities and those destined to fail.

    The proven methodology for profiting from Strategic Novelty (SN)

    Three steps + powerful tools to:

    Identify the WOW

    What excites you? Unsettles you? What does that mean? What does it say about you?

    Execute the SO WHAT?

    Choose and apply the strategic ideas most likely to enrich your organization

    Amplify the OOMPH

    Experiment, learn, and lead to maximize the impact of novelty

    Table of contents

    1. About This eBook
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. Praise for Strategic Innovation
    5. Dedication Page
    6. Contents
    7. 1. Introduction
      1. For the Strategists Reading This Book
      2. Introduction
        1. Recognizing and Acting on Strategic Novelty (Before Everyone Else Does)
        2. Learning from Outliers and Benefitting from Their Strategic Novelty
      3. A Methodology with Tools
        1. 1. Identify the WOW
        2. 2. Execute the SO WHAT
        3. 3. Amplify the OOMPH
      4. Punching Above One’s Weight: Strategy Amplification
    8. 2. Outliers from a Theoretical and Methodological Perspective
      1. Outliers from a Theoretical Perspective
        1. Outliers and Management Research
        2. Toward an Outlier Inclusive Understanding of Knowledge
      2. Outliers from a Methodological Perspective
        1. Outliers Versus Deviant Case: Why Extreme Performance Isn’t Enough
      3. Sampling Approach and Research Design
    9. 3. Workbook: The Strategic Novelty Tools and How to Use Them for Innovating and Amplifying Strategy
      1. 1. WOW!
      2. 2. So What?
      3. 3. OOMPH!
      4. How to OOMPH? Use Amplification Strategies!
        1. Inclusiveness/Openness
        2. Radical Cost Reductions
        3. Modularization
        4. Massive Search Strategies
        5. (Re)Combination of Adjacent Ideas
        6. The Courage to Experiment and Learn
    10. Cases
      1. 4. Fondia: “We Law Your Business”
        1. WOW: From Hourly Billing to the Fixed Fee
        2. OOMPH: Virtual Tools for Legal Support
        3. Avoiding Disputes and Legal Risks: the “Make Law Not War”
        4. Open Culture and Shareholding Structure
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Dr. Liisa Välikangas, Professor-in-Residence at Fondia
          1. On Work, Resilience, and Legal Environment
      2. 5. A Quirky Way to Product Innovation
        1. SO WHAT?—Why Should We Care About Quirky?
        2. WOW: What Is Unique About Quirky’s Inclusive Product Innovation
        3. Rewarding Community Engagement
        4. Manufacturing and Retail
        5. Alliance with GE
        6. WINK as New Stand-Alone Business of Quirky
        7. OOMPH: Extending Alliances Through “Powered-by-Quirky”
        8. Outlook: Quirky’s Inclusiveness Strategy
        9. From the Perspective of Inês Peixoto, a Member of the Quirky Inventor Community
      3. 6. Grow VC Group
        1. OOMPH: Bigger Money, Bigger Data, Bigger Regulation
      4. 7. Scoopshot: Pulling the Scoop on the Trendy Photo Crowdsourcing Platform
        1. Context
        2. WOW: Photography for Everyone—Everyone’s a Photographer
        3. Strategies: SO WHAT Makes Scoopshot Worth a Shot?
        4. How Is Scoopshot a Positive Outlier?
        5. Challenges
        6. Outlook
        7. From the Perspective of Lakshmi B. Nair, a Scoopshooter
          1. From a User’s Perspective
          2. From an External Commenter’s Perspective
      5. 8. Made in the Future: Shapeways’ Manufacturing Model
        1. WOW: Affordable Manufacturing on Demand
        2. SO WHAT: Shorter Time to Market, Iteration on-the-Fly, and Customization
        3. Lowering Barriers for Independent Small Businesses
        4. OOMPH: Development and Growth
        5. Challenges
        6. Outlook: Shapeways as an Alternative to Mass Manufacturing
        7. From the Perspective of Pekka Salokannel, Designer and Entrepreneur
          1. Transcribed verbatim from an interview by Inês Peixoto on December 4, 2014
      6. 9. “One Size Does Not Need to Fit All”—Nor1 eStandby Upgrade Solution
        1. WOW: Nor1—How Did It All Start?
        2. OOMPH: Don’t Leave Money on the Table—Upsell!
        3. Nor1 eStandby Upgrade Technology—the Outstanding Effects of a Standby Buying Process
          1. The Safety Net
          2. The House Balancer
          3. The Market Tester
          4. The Feature Monetizer
        4. Strategies—How Does It Work Exactly?
        5. OOMPH: Right Offer, for the Right Price, at the Right Time, and for the Right Person
        6. PRiME—the Right Offer for the Right Guest at the Right Price
        7. eStandby Upgrade—Benefits
        8. Challenges and Conclusion
        9. From the Perspective of Mario Bellinzona, Senior Vice President, EMEA, Nor1
      7. 10. Sculpteo: A Factory in the Cloud for the 3D Printing Revolution
        1. WOW: Cloud-Based Software Platform Underlies the Manufacturing Service
        2. OOMPH: Supporting Designers in Developing Capabilities for 3D Printing
        3. Challenges
        4. Outlook: Sculpteo and the Digital Factory of the Future
      8. 11. BUG: Friendly Wasps for Pest Control in Farming
        1. Going Back and Toward the Future in Biological Pest Control
        2. WOW: How Parasitic Wasps Control Insect Pests Naturally
        3. OOMPH: BUG Scales Up Natural Processes for Pest Control
        4. SO WHAT? Radical Cost Reduction in Pest Control
        5. How BUG Is Different from Incumbents
        6. Challenges
        7. Outlook: BUG’s Biomimicry for Radical Cost Reduction
        8. From the Perspective of Heraldo Negri de Oliveira, Co-Founding Partner and Director of Production, BUG
      9. 12. BioCurious: The Curious Case of the Community Biotech Laboratory
        1. SO WHAT Makes BioCurious Special?
        2. How Is It Different from Incumbents?
        3. The Challenges of Novelty
        4. OOMPH: Curiosity Beyond Bio
        5. From the Perspective of Tito Jankowski, Co-Founder, BioCurious
      10. 13. TaskRabbit: Hop Online and Pull a Rabbit out of Your Service Network
        1. Following the “TaskRabbit”—How Does It Work?
        2. WOW: From Hired Hands to Peer Labor?
        3. SO WHAT: How Is TaskRabbit Different from Other Job Agencies?
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Lakshmi B. Nair and Inês Peixoto, Unaffiliated “Taskers”
      11. 14. Gengo: Winning in Translation Through Crowdsourcing
        1. WOW: Crowd-Based Translation Services
        2. Strategies
          1. How Does Gengo Translate Their Vision into Reality?
        3. OOMPH: Gengo as a Recruiter
          1. Gengo as an Open Data Source
          2. Gengo as Symbiotic Company
          3. Gengo’s Quality Policy
        4. SO WHAT Is Gengo Translating Next?
        5. Challenges
        6. Outlook
        7. From the Perspective of Nozomi Umenai, Marketing Manager, Gengo
      12. 15. Microtask: Extreme Approach to Digital Work, Two-Second Tasks at a Time
        1. WOW: Human Intelligence in Digitizing Paper-Based Content
        2. SO WHAT: Breaking Down Routine Work into Distributed Microtasks
        3. Standardizing Microtasks Enables Quality Assurance and Scalability
        4. OOMPH: Microtask’s Turn-Key Crowdwork Services for Businesses
        5. DigiTalkoot: An Experiment in the Gamification of Crowd Labor
        6. Challenges
        7. Outlook
      13. 16. Kaggle: Getting Quant Brains to Play Data Games
        1. Context
        2. WOW: How Does Kaggle Handle the Boggle?
        3. SO WHAT Makes Kaggle a Positive Outlier?
          1. Kaggle as a Marketplace
          2. Kaggle as a Benchmark
          3. Kaggle as a Job Market/Recruiting Platform
          4. Kaggle Compared to Adjacent Companies
          5. Kaggle as a New Corporate Style
        4. OOMPH: Kaggle as a Crowdsourcing Venue
        5. Challenges
        6. Outlook
        7. From the Perspective of Harikesh Nair, Professor of Marketing, Stanford Graduate School of Business
          1. From an Interview by Dr. Markus Paukku, January 27, 2015
        8. From the Perspective of Milena Mend, a Student of Organization and Culture at the University of St. Gallen, on Imaginary Futures
          1. What Will Crowdsourcing Be Like in 2025? And Which Implications Can We Derive for Today?
          2. Jump in Time
      14. 17. MakieLab: Custom-Made, Born-Digital Toys
        1. WOW: Customized Toys, Manufactured on Demand
          1. Blending Digital and Physical in the Business of Toys and Games
        2. SO WHAT: How Are Makies Different from Existing Customized Dolls?
        3. How Is MakieLab Different from Incumbents in the Toy Industry?
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Alice Taylor, Co-Founder and CEO, MakieLab
      15. 18. ZenRobotics: Riveting Robots to Reduce and Recycle
        1. WOW: Robots Sorting Our Trash
        2. SO WHAT: Robotics to the Rescue? How Does ZenRobotics Operate?
        3. How Is ZenRobotics a Positive Outlier?
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Tomi Laamanen, Professor of Strategic Management, University of St. Gallen
      16. 19. Spire: Launching Crowdfunding Beyond Earth
        1. WOW: Satellites for Mr. and Mrs. Brown
        2. WOW: How Did Spire Launch Itself into the Space?
        3. SO WHAT Makes Spire a Positive Outlier?
          1. Spire as a Data Company
          2. Spire as a Business
          3. Spire as an Employer
          4. Spire When Compared to Similar Companies
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Eric Nowak, Professor of Financial Management and Accounting, Università della Svizzera italiana, and Swiss Finance Institute
          1. SPIRE—Crowdfunding as a Success Factor to Shake Up a Sleeping Market
      17. 20. Organovo: Leaving 3D Bioprints for Others to Follow
        1. WOW: Digitally Printed Organs on Demand, or Bioprinting Tissues in Their Own Image
        2. SO WHAT Makes Organovo the Fittest?
          1. Organovo When Compared to Human Donors
          2. Organovo When Compared to Traditional Models
          3. Organovo as the Future
        3. Challenges
        4. Outlook
        5. From the Perspective of Michael Renard, Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations, Organovo
      18. 21. Power to the People: Participant-Driven Health Research at Genomera
        1. How Does Genomera’s Research Platform Work?
        2. WOW: Participant-Driven Health Research
        3. SO WHAT: Cost Compression in Health Research
        4. How Genomera Is Different from Incumbents
        5. Challenges
        6. Outlook
        7. From the Perspective of Dr. Markus Paukku, a Study Participant
      19. 22. Robin Hood: The Merry Adventures of an Asset Management Cooperative
        1. WOW: Robin Hood and the Parasite Algorithm
        2. Robin Hood and the Profit Allocation Structure
        3. SO WHAT Makes Robin Hood a Positive Outlier?
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Dr. Liisa Välikangas, Board Member, Robin Hood Minor Asset Management (with Comments from Dr. Akseli Virtanen)
          1. Becoming Robin Hood and Its Minor Implications
      20. 23. Bang & Olufsen: Modulating Strategic Renewal Through Innovation and Organizational Design
        1. Strategies
          1. WOW: How to Continually Renew for Success in a Fast-Moving Industry?
          2. The Enduring History of B&O
        2. How Is B&O a Positive Outlier?
          1. A Look from Within
          2. What Next?
        3. SO WHAT: Comparison with Other Companies (Incumbents and Adjacents)
        4. Challenges
        5. Outlook
        6. From the Perspective of Nicolai J. Foss, Professor of Strategy and Organization, Copenhagen Business School
          1. Changing the Business Model of Bang & Olufsen
          2. Bang & Olufsen: Icarus in Jutland?
          3. The Innovation Process in a Small Company
          4. Coda
      21. 24. Outlook for the Strategist
        1. Toward Strategic Resilience: Learning from Strategic Novelty (or What Is About to Leap at You)
        2. Emergent Outlier-Incumbent Arenas
        3. Strategic Resilience, or Learning from Things That Have Not Yet Happened
    11. Reference Summary on Outliers
    12. Authors
    13. Contributors
    14. References
    15. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Strategic Innovation: The Definitive Guide to Outlier Strategies
    • Author(s): Liisa VÄlikangas, Michael Gibbert
    • Release date: September 2015
    • Publisher(s): Pearson
    • ISBN: 9780133980158