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product as it is and perhaps never think to challenge its limitations. 3 : STEP ONE – SEEKING AND SHAPING OPPORTUNITIES

Marks & Spencer recognised that flat-pack furniture right across the
industry had an unpleasant habit of reducing otherwise sane and
reasonably well-adjusted adults to sobbing, pitiful wrecks.58 The
company achieved differentiation by acting on this recognition,
recruiting a company specialising in writing assembly instructions, who
tore up the existing manuals and started from scratch in developing
customer-friendly instructions in plain English.

actions speak louder than words A final drawback derives from
individuals’ economy with the truth about their own behaviour. While
individuals may not actually lie, they may be unable to tell the exact
truth – after all, how many senior directors have you met who publicly
extol the virtues of the digital age in creating the paperless office, but in
private have their e-mails printed off for them by others because they
cannot operate their personal computer effectively?

All in all, it is always better to be guided by the maxim ‘Do as users do’
rather than ‘Do as users say they do’. Getting right inside your home
market is all the more important because of the high proportion of
business ideas which originate from an individual’s current work
environment. Jack Kaplan reports research which shows that almost 50

Present work Vision of opportunity
environment 47% 11%

Improving existing
technology, product or

service 15%

Secondary sources:
brainstorming, trade
publications, commerce
business only, idea
brokers, venture capital

firms, technology
transfer agencies 27%

Figure 3.2 Origins of business ideas59