Systemic Innovation;

Strategy Management

Strategy Innovation

Synthesizing Dynamic Corporate Strategies in the New Era of Rampant Change

What is Strategy Innovation?

Strategy innovation is about challenging existing industry methods of creating customer value in order to meet newly emerging customer needs, add additional value, and create new markets and new customer groups for the sponsoring company.⁷

Why Strategy Innovation?

To survive in today's tidal wave of global economic, technological, and social change, you must understand how powerful forces are aggregating once-distinct product and geographic markets, enhancing market-clearing efficiency, and increasing specialization in the supply chain.

You should respond by adopting a new approach to strategy – one that combines speed, openness, flexibility, and forward-focused thinking.¹¹

Never is strategy implementation more important than when innovation is at the heart of a strategy. Innovation always involves treading into uncertain waters. And as uncertainty rises, the value of a well-thought-out, but static, enterprise strategy drops. In fact, when pursuing entirely new business models, no amount of research can resolve the critical unknowns. All that strategy can do is give you a good starting point. From there, you must experiment, learn, and adapt.¹⁰

The Seven Dimensions of Strategic Innovation

The Strategic Innovation framework weaves together seven dimensions to produce a range of outcomes that drive growth.

A company's Organizational Readiness may drive or inhibit its ability to act upon and implement new ideas and strategies, and to successfully manage operational, political, cultural and financial demands that will follow... More

What Is Your Strategic Intent?

Strategic intent is a high-level statement of the means by which your organization will achieve its vision. It is a core component of your dynamic strategy. Strategic intent cannot be planned all in advance. It must evolve on the basis of experience during its implementation... More

Reinventing an Industry

Reinventing an industry involves changing an industry's competitive rules, developing completely new products or services, or changing the fundamental financial relationships between companies in your value chain.

Blue Ocean Strategy: 6 Principles

Blue Ocean Strategy is about revolutionary value innovation.

The six principles drive the successful formulation and execution of Blue Ocean Strategy. These principles attenuate the six risks... More

 Case in Point  Changing a Business Logic by Canon

Source: Changing Strategic Direction, Peter Skat-Rordam

When Canon entered the copier business in the 1970s, it changed the logic of how to run a copier business. The company successfully expanded its photocopier business in the USA by using competitive innovation.

The dominant player, with a 93% market share in 1970, was Xerox, which offered a very broad range of copiers, with frequent introductions of new models. These machines were costly, so Xerox began leasing machines, which included service agreements and paper supplies. Sales were conducted through an extensive direct-sales organization which typically targeted central staff functions, because the Xerox concept was based upon centralizing copying with its big machines.

Canon entered the market with smaller, cheaper machines for decentralized copy locations. These products were distributed through office-product dealers, who were also made responsible for service. Canon thus avoided the cost of establishing a large sales and service network. Copy machines were simply sold, not leased, so Canon also avoided the cost of leasing.

Canon later became leader of the small offices market that has been ignored by Xerox, by aggressive sales to this segment with a new line of products called personal copiers. Xerox had difficulties in responding because its business set-up (cost structure) was designed for a specific type of business and could not easily be changed.