In "Dealing with Darwin", marketing guru Geoffrey Moore, describes three categories of innovation - Product, Customer Intimacy and Process.
Moore achieved prominence as an expert in the field of new product introductions when he identified the chasm - a period of re-invention before disruptive product categories crossed into mainstream acceptance.
Hewlett-Packard and Motorola plus others were keen to know why some product concepts crossed into mass markets whilst others failed.
Moore answered the question and influenced a generation in Silicon Valley.
"Dealing With Darwin" is about the dynamics of products once they become established and the levers that can be pulled to achieve success.
Here are the three phases and twelve levers that Moore identified Product Phase.
Disruption Innovation - think big picture - think big problems.
The aeroplane solved the problem of travelling large distances across open water at high speed and low cost.
Innovation at this point exploits the confluence of new ideas and drags entire infrastructures in it's' wake.
To embed air travel we also needed oil refining for fuel, airport construction for takeoff and landing and radio communication for navigation.
Disruptive Innovation demands visionaries - people who sense with every fibre of their being that their work will make the world a better place.
Whole industries are created from successful disruptions, others quietly dwindle away.
In reality most disruptions fail but the successes are spectacular.
All products were at one point in the cycle disruptions to what went before.
Application Innovation - this is the first point at which a disruption starts to deliver some value add and a modest financial return.
The Wright Brothers could envisage the age of winged transport but first they had to make their invention work in the commercial world.
This is done by focussing to the point of obsession on the needs of a bull's eye target market segment.
The earliest aeroplanes were perfect for a single application of overwhelming significance.
They could fly above the enemy during the Great War.
Armies everywhere could instantly spot the application.
Planes were rapidly adapted to carry heavy guns, fly further and higher and manoeuvre out of trouble.
Armies also had deep pockets.
Successful military applications lead to interest from postal services and farmers.
Aeroplanes became new pleasure pursuit for the wealthy.
Product Innovation - the point when it is economically viable to invest in the changes needed to move into mainstream markets.
Innovation switches to product features, performance and the establishment of key market price points.
Competitors and variants will enter the market to the point where a new Category of products is firmly established.
Competition in this phase is ferocious.
Attention must also turn to innovation in sales channels through which the greatest number of customers can gain access to the product at the keenest price.
Platform Innovation - once a category has become established a market leader will soon emerge.
Successful companies at this point innovate by establishing de facto and de jure standards for the entire market.
In the railway, motor car, aeroplane and IT revolutions standards have made it safer for new entrants to participate.
Thousands of software developers and value added resellers came into existence once Microsoft had initiated the standards in operating systems, for example.
This cycle of phases was dubbed the Technology Adoption Lifecycle by Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm".
The original thinking about product lifecycles began in of all places the potato seed market.
Moore wondered why some products in IT made it to the mainstream and others didn't.
His view is that the successful must win in the Innovation Stakes at each stage - Innovation is not an event it's a process.
This section covers the four elements of Customer Intimacy on the top of the diagram above.
These innovations extend beyond product innovation.
Assume that a product category has been successfully launched and is now seeking to maintain peak level sales.
With every periodic dip in sales new ideas are required.
Customer Intimacy.
Line Extension - in the development of the motor car, sales slowed after the early market became saturated.
Designers and manufacturers were forced to uncover new customer segments.
The successes were many and are taken for granted today but were startling in their day - sports cars for affluent young rakes, small family cars, camper vans.
The list could go on.
Line extension takes the basic concept and customises it for deeper market penetration by accessing more identifiable niches.
Enhancement Innovation - eventually line innovation becomes exhausted so switches to differentiation on features - heated seats, sun roofs, ABS - and on and on.
In every category in this phase marketers want to know about usage.
Focus groups, surveys, regional pilots all are put in place to observe and test buyer behaviour.
Enhancements are relatively easy to copy so advantage in this phase is more difficult to sustain.
Marketing Innovation - eventually categories resolve into fewer and fewer participants.
The fight for market share once categories are so well established switches to innovation in marketing.
In this phase new thought is given to engagement with customers at a psychological level in order to aggregate buyers into loose federations around brands.
Innovation and artistic creativity blend here.
Advertising in particular demonstrates how acutely attuned to markets the manufacturers have become.
Experiential Innovation - in order to sustain internal commitment to a brand, manufacturers eventually innovate ways to actively involve clients with physical experiences rather that remote touch through marketing.
Mercedes Benz, for example, now incentivises the collection of vehicles from their factory.
It is even possible to follow your own specific vehicle, with its personally selected options, through the entire manufacturing process.
Watching it come off the production line must be like being present at a birth.
These four sub-categories of innovation are about the exploration of ever deeper intimacy with the customer journey from first awareness through to eventual recommendation.
In "Dealing With Darwin" Geoffrey Moore categorises innovation into three phases.
When a product has entered the mainstream, innovation takes place by increasing customer intimacy and through process improvement.
Process Innovation.
Value Engineering Innovation.
Once a product category has established itself and the main players have emerged they then enter into fierce competition.
Innovation turns to delivering the product at lower cost.
For example, a supermarket chain will try to recreate the richness and texture of a popular cake by using cheaper ingredients.
If the customer is not able to perceive significant differences from the original then some form of value will have been engineered into the process.
Integration Innovation.
Cost can be further reduced and processes simplified if tasks and components can be integrated together.
In the motor industry the components used in one model are designed to be easily reconfigured for use in other models.
The more manufacturing can be made modular then the production of the standard building block components gets cheaper as volume increases.
Process Innovation.
In this phase markets will be approaching near commodity status so the only way to drive volume up and price down is the operationally more efficient.
Deming pioneered work in this phase under the title TQM - total quality management.
Six Sigma and others attempt to do the same thing by streamlining processes to remove unnecessary steps.
Value Migration.
In this phase innovation occurs when value is delivered in new ways to disrupt the traditional buying experience.
Typically this means a shift to delivery as a service rather than a product.
Telephone answering machines were gradually replaced by the telephone companies offering a dial back service to collect messages so that no revenue was lost from unanswered calls.
The phases help identify where a product is in the lifecycle and the twelve types describe the broad type of innovation that will take the product deeper into the target market.
Moore achieved prominence as an expert in the field of new product introductions when he identified the chasm - a period of re-invention before disruptive product categories crossed into mainstream acceptance.
Hewlett-Packard and Motorola plus others were keen to know why some product concepts crossed into mass markets whilst others failed.
Moore answered the question and influenced a generation in Silicon Valley.
"Dealing With Darwin" is about the dynamics of products once they become established and the levers that can be pulled to achieve success.
Here are the three phases and twelve levers that Moore identified Product Phase.
Disruption Innovation - think big picture - think big problems.
The aeroplane solved the problem of travelling large distances across open water at high speed and low cost.
Innovation at this point exploits the confluence of new ideas and drags entire infrastructures in it's' wake.
To embed air travel we also needed oil refining for fuel, airport construction for takeoff and landing and radio communication for navigation.
Disruptive Innovation demands visionaries - people who sense with every fibre of their being that their work will make the world a better place.
Whole industries are created from successful disruptions, others quietly dwindle away.
In reality most disruptions fail but the successes are spectacular.
All products were at one point in the cycle disruptions to what went before.
Application Innovation - this is the first point at which a disruption starts to deliver some value add and a modest financial return.
The Wright Brothers could envisage the age of winged transport but first they had to make their invention work in the commercial world.
This is done by focussing to the point of obsession on the needs of a bull's eye target market segment.
The earliest aeroplanes were perfect for a single application of overwhelming significance.
They could fly above the enemy during the Great War.
Armies everywhere could instantly spot the application.
Planes were rapidly adapted to carry heavy guns, fly further and higher and manoeuvre out of trouble.
Armies also had deep pockets.
Successful military applications lead to interest from postal services and farmers.
Aeroplanes became new pleasure pursuit for the wealthy.
Product Innovation - the point when it is economically viable to invest in the changes needed to move into mainstream markets.
Innovation switches to product features, performance and the establishment of key market price points.
Competitors and variants will enter the market to the point where a new Category of products is firmly established.
Competition in this phase is ferocious.
Attention must also turn to innovation in sales channels through which the greatest number of customers can gain access to the product at the keenest price.
Platform Innovation - once a category has become established a market leader will soon emerge.
Successful companies at this point innovate by establishing de facto and de jure standards for the entire market.
In the railway, motor car, aeroplane and IT revolutions standards have made it safer for new entrants to participate.
Thousands of software developers and value added resellers came into existence once Microsoft had initiated the standards in operating systems, for example.
This cycle of phases was dubbed the Technology Adoption Lifecycle by Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm".
The original thinking about product lifecycles began in of all places the potato seed market.
Moore wondered why some products in IT made it to the mainstream and others didn't.
His view is that the successful must win in the Innovation Stakes at each stage - Innovation is not an event it's a process.
This section covers the four elements of Customer Intimacy on the top of the diagram above.
These innovations extend beyond product innovation.
Assume that a product category has been successfully launched and is now seeking to maintain peak level sales.
With every periodic dip in sales new ideas are required.
Customer Intimacy.
Line Extension - in the development of the motor car, sales slowed after the early market became saturated.
Designers and manufacturers were forced to uncover new customer segments.
The successes were many and are taken for granted today but were startling in their day - sports cars for affluent young rakes, small family cars, camper vans.
The list could go on.
Line extension takes the basic concept and customises it for deeper market penetration by accessing more identifiable niches.
Enhancement Innovation - eventually line innovation becomes exhausted so switches to differentiation on features - heated seats, sun roofs, ABS - and on and on.
In every category in this phase marketers want to know about usage.
Focus groups, surveys, regional pilots all are put in place to observe and test buyer behaviour.
Enhancements are relatively easy to copy so advantage in this phase is more difficult to sustain.
Marketing Innovation - eventually categories resolve into fewer and fewer participants.
The fight for market share once categories are so well established switches to innovation in marketing.
In this phase new thought is given to engagement with customers at a psychological level in order to aggregate buyers into loose federations around brands.
Innovation and artistic creativity blend here.
Advertising in particular demonstrates how acutely attuned to markets the manufacturers have become.
Experiential Innovation - in order to sustain internal commitment to a brand, manufacturers eventually innovate ways to actively involve clients with physical experiences rather that remote touch through marketing.
Mercedes Benz, for example, now incentivises the collection of vehicles from their factory.
It is even possible to follow your own specific vehicle, with its personally selected options, through the entire manufacturing process.
Watching it come off the production line must be like being present at a birth.
These four sub-categories of innovation are about the exploration of ever deeper intimacy with the customer journey from first awareness through to eventual recommendation.
In "Dealing With Darwin" Geoffrey Moore categorises innovation into three phases.
When a product has entered the mainstream, innovation takes place by increasing customer intimacy and through process improvement.
Process Innovation.
Value Engineering Innovation.
Once a product category has established itself and the main players have emerged they then enter into fierce competition.
Innovation turns to delivering the product at lower cost.
For example, a supermarket chain will try to recreate the richness and texture of a popular cake by using cheaper ingredients.
If the customer is not able to perceive significant differences from the original then some form of value will have been engineered into the process.
Integration Innovation.
Cost can be further reduced and processes simplified if tasks and components can be integrated together.
In the motor industry the components used in one model are designed to be easily reconfigured for use in other models.
The more manufacturing can be made modular then the production of the standard building block components gets cheaper as volume increases.
Process Innovation.
In this phase markets will be approaching near commodity status so the only way to drive volume up and price down is the operationally more efficient.
Deming pioneered work in this phase under the title TQM - total quality management.
Six Sigma and others attempt to do the same thing by streamlining processes to remove unnecessary steps.
Value Migration.
In this phase innovation occurs when value is delivered in new ways to disrupt the traditional buying experience.
Typically this means a shift to delivery as a service rather than a product.
Telephone answering machines were gradually replaced by the telephone companies offering a dial back service to collect messages so that no revenue was lost from unanswered calls.
The phases help identify where a product is in the lifecycle and the twelve types describe the broad type of innovation that will take the product deeper into the target market.
SHARE
