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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS88

step two: underline key words Underline each key word so that
you can examine each in turn for hidden assumptions. Key words in
the BRL Hardy example might be as follows: ‘How to increase the sales
through overseas branded retail of our Australian wine?’

step three: challenge each underlined key word Without
considering the validity of each assumption, identify any important
implications which they suggest. An effective way of doing this is to
see how the meaning of the statement changes if you replace a key
word by a synonym or near synonym. For example, why should sales
be increased? Would the company actually make more money on fewer
sales which produced a higher margin? Why could sales not be
improved or developed in additional geographic markets, or augmented
with other product ranges or widened with product extensions?

Why just sales? Why not marketing effort, physical presence or own
distributor networks? What does overseas mean? Countries with a
highly developed consumer market for wine? Countries without such a
market or perhaps ones which do not produce their own wine? What do
we mean by branded? Branded by country of origin, by producing
village, by the type of food with which it should be drunk, by retailers’
brands or by our own Hardy brand?

Why retail? Why not through wholesale or direct to intermediaries such
as pub and hotel chains? Why Australian? Why do we have to restrict
ourselves to distributing home-produced wine? Why not Chile, France
or Italy?

Why just wine? Why not other fruit-based drinks or low-alcohol
varieties or beer? Could we promote or distribute other different but
complementary products to enhance the wine?

step four: redefining the opportunity Having explored how the
particular choice of key words affects the meaning of the original
opportunity definition, try redefining the opportunity in a better way.
The aim is not necessarily to change the position of the boundary but
rather to ensure that you understand more clearly how the wording of
the opportunity is affecting your assumptions about the boundary.

In the BRL Hardy example above, the core problem might now be better
defined as: ‘How might we develop our own international brand of
wine which we source from around the globe?’