Summary: When looking at your ideas and evaluating how you can create unique and superior value, look across alternative industries for inspiration.
Innovation does often not involve the purely new but blends other concepts or takes a new angle from what’s already out there. Very little is completely new.
James Dyson first came across the cyclone concept when he saw how factories used giant cyclone extractors to remove debris from the factory floor – just like a huge vacuum cleaner. He then of course took this idea and applied in miniature to the vacuum cleaner and the rest is history.
When Henry Ford out performed over 500 competitors in the car industry, he did so by achieving economies of scale through a production line method he copied from a meat packers – he used unskilled workers to work on one piece each of just one type of car. The work was quicker, simpler and cheaper. His competitors were all building high priced customised cars with highly skilled workers on a multitude of parts.
Nobi, a bus maker looked beyond the use of steel for buses. Steel as a solution meant many compromises for buyers such as high maintenance costs due to corrosion and high costs due to fuel consumption – value pains. Nobi, taking a cue from the boat industry, made lighter rust free fibreglass buses instead – which cured these value pains.
See how moneysupermarket.com has altered the consumer value line for loans to one that more realistically mirrors what they want, and you may be able to see similar applications in other areas.
Look at the space between similar industries
If you’re trying to think of features, one way is to look at those industries that produce products which do the same jobs for buyers. Often the space between these industries can provide space for value innovation.
For example, Net Jets, the multi billion pound firm, allows members to hire private jets – a concept called fractional ownership.
It looked at the 2 main ways of corporate air travel – flying first class on an airline, or using a company wholly owned jet. The famous four for air travel included cost, convenience, time, pleasant experience, access and coverage. When opportunity scores were looked at first class only performed better over ownership on cost, in all other areas they were compromises or “value pains” for first class users. Yet, when it came to jet ownership, the only value pain was the cost.
Cheap ownership, in other words, this was the one job that could not be done by either industry and its solutions!
A new concept was born. Netjets now promises availability within 4 hours. You can drive straight to your plane, and get a set amount of flying hours every year for a far lower overall cost then ownership. The cost is more expensive compared to first class but not by much, and yet it excels it in every other Value Factor! In addition, over another product – plane charter – plane types, accessibility and training levels were guaranteed.
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