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Boundary-hopping is particularly effective at prompting insights into 3 : STEP ONE – SEEKING AND SHAPING OPPORTUNITIES
what is missing from a market, as opposed to what could be
incrementally improved. It goes without saying that these breakthrough
insights are especially hard to achieve in markets where the
conventional industry mind-set is particularly powerful.

Boundary-hopping targets six discrete areas in which to seek
opportunities, as shown in Figure 3.3. Each target area is discussed in turn.

boundary-hopping into area one: substitute industries Hopping

over the conventional boundaries of your industry into substitute

industries may allow you to spot

an opportunity which will make a time
difference in your home industry.
substitute functional and
It is a truism that companies often industries emotional appeals

to buyers

demonstrate silo thinking along

functional lines. Entire industries conventional
sometimes fall into the same trap, market
with internal market statistics and
competitive actions and reactions alternative complementary
strategic groups products and
within industries services

non-conventional
parts of the
buyer chain

recorded and analysed to death,

but alternative markets failing to receive the same attention.

We saw earlier how personal experience prompted computer software
specialist Intuit to recognise that the market for personal financial software
which allowed households to manage their monthly accounts represented
a vast potential market. Of the 42 relatively complex financial software
packages then on the market, none had emerged as a user-friendly market
leader. Conventional industry thinking ‘required’ the products to be replete
with accounting jargon and over-complex but under-used features.

Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, had the significant insight that it was the
pencil, rather than another industry player, which constituted the
greatest competitor, because the pencil was such a resilient substitute.71
Cook realised that the humble pencil offered two key advantages over
computerised solutions, namely ease of use and low cost. He saw that
an opportunity existed to combine the computer’s distinctive
advantages over the pencil – speed and accuracy – with those of the
pencil over the computer – simplicity of use and low price. When this
opportunity was eventually developed through to product
implementation, the basic functions which remained allowed a
significantly lower price than the conventional market players.