Page 104 - DNBI_A01.QXD

813 : STEP ONE – SEEKING AND SHAPING OPPORTUNITIES

new CEO, Ralph Stayer. So remote was the organisation from its
products and markets that not only did the staff fail regularly to taste
the company’s products, they also defined the products purely in
manufacturing terms, in other words according to how they were made.

Stayer’s success in getting the company to explore how the customers
actually consumed the products – pouring maple syrup over their
breakfast frankfurters or drinking beer with their bratwursts at
lunchtime, for example – highlighted opportunities for product
developments which transformed the business.

exploiting personal experience Possibilities often present
themselves as difficulties which you, or someone close to you, have
experienced at first hand.

James Dyson translated the inefficiencies which he encountered in
using a conventional vacuum cleaner into the Dual Cyclone. We have
already seen how Anita Roddick had the insight on breaking bulk in the
cosmetic sector while out shopping with her young family. Julie
Pankhurst had the idea for the website Friends Reunited while she was
pregnant, wanted to contact old school friends and found it difficult to
do so. Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, whose Quicken software
transformed how individuals and small businesses managed their
finances, had the first insight into the possibilities of the personal
finance software market when watching his wife managing the monthly
bills by hand in time-honoured, but tedious, fashion.

possibilities often present themselves as
difficulties which you have experienced at
first hand

These examples provide credence to the assertion by Robert Epstein:
‘Becoming more creative is really just a matter of paying attention to
that endless flow of ideas you generate and learning to capture and act
upon the new that’s within you.’61

the lead-users technique While core users operate at the

heart of the conventional market, lead users operate at the edge of the
conventional market. Investigating lead users recognises that many
products are initially thought of and even prototyped by users rather
than manufacturers. This occurs because lead users stretch the