A new year is upon us. A new year that will not only be fraught with Risk, as per our recent series on Risk 2011 / Risk 2012, but a new year that will be brimming with opportunity, for those with the insight to identify it and the innovation to capture it.
And when SI says innovation, it means innovation, not renovation. Sergio Zyman may have preached renovation before innovation, but it’s not enough anymore. Any company that has survived the recent downturn relatively intact has more than likely already renovated its brands, products, and core competencies to the max and needs something to get it to the next level. And, more than likely, that something has to go beyond a traditional Blue Ocean innovation strategy (as one never knows if that’s a sea anyone wants to sail) to a Golden Apple strategy that will enable the company to deliver products and services that the majority of customers in its target market segments want (and that will sell out months in advance in pre-orders).
This will require a shift from Best Practices to Next Practices as the organization redefines how it does business. One way an organization can achieve this is to employ the Business Genome approach described by Andrea Kates in Find Your Next.
The Business Genome approach is based on a genome mindset [that] sparks new insights for translating the DNA of one business to the growth challenges of another as this allows strategists to see through a new lens — an absolute necessity if an organization is going to identify the Next Practices required to take it to the Next Level required to develop, and deliver, a Golden Apple strategy. [In olden times, everyone wanted the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. Today, everyone wants an i-Device — an iPod, an iPhone, and an iPad — these are the golden eggs of modern consumerism and the Apple strategic mindset that created it transformed Apple from has-been to global leader.]
Our next post will discuss the Business Genome approach, described as the Key to Next, and review Andrea Kates’ Find Your Next. Stay tuned!