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To Use The Opportunity Approach To decide which business innovation concept is appropriate to a company, the first thing to do is to ask whether the company is generally doing the right things (effectiveness), but just needs to do them better (efficiency), or whether it needs to do new things. It is important to consider whether both fast results and the scale of change are needed. It should first be asked whether the company is faced with an evolutionary or radical change in its industrial sector.
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It does not make much sense to pursue costly new opportunities if a company is neither effective nor efficient. Cost-cutting and restructuring measures should come first as a starting point of long- term fundamental transformation creative destruction that involves downsizing and simplifying, followed by regeneration of the organization and strategy. If your company is effective, but not efficient, your focus should be on implementation of continuous efficiency improvement measures and, ultimately, establishment of an enterprise- wide business process management (EBPM) system. A continuous effort to improve organizational climate as well as the productivity of the core business in response to continuous changes in the marketplace should be emphasized in the companys growth strategy. If your company achieved high operational efficiency but lacks effectiveness, you should work more on your business and strategic planning. Unless you regularly schedule time (one-day out-of- the-office meeting a month at least) to work on your business and answer critical questions, you'll never achieve your stretch goals. The opportunity-driven business development approach aims at increasing the effectiveness of a company through the pursuit of new business. The opportunity approach is an alternative to the traditional process of renewing business strategy. This approach is also valid even for very successful companies that are already both very efficient and very effective. Even with a healthy business, external change is a constant factor. Besides, it is often easier to obtain resource support for new opportunities when a company is doing well.
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Discovering Opportunities Purpose Opportunity discovery is at the heart of the opportunity approach to business development. This needs to be a natural element in your company's range of activities. Honing Your Competitive Edge Discovering and taking advantage of opportunities that others don't see is a key to developing and honing your competitive edge, no matter what industry you're in or what your role is. Seeing and seizing opportunities are skills that can be applied universally, if you have the curiosity, commitment, and a framework. Sun Tzu's "The Art of War": The Five Things You Should Know To Win You must know five things to win: Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems... More Optimistic Thinking Changing your perspective is the key to finding success in seeming failure. "Optimistic thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover opportunities in problems." Due to optimistic positive thinking, problems will become merely challenging opportunities that you can turn to your advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate your creativity for finding better ways to live. Creative Leadership Creative leaders search for and discover opportunities, introduce positive change and make quantum leaps forward in creating new products and processes... More Experimentation: The Key to Discovery Experimentation means trying something new and unproven and acknowledging that you cannot reliably predict the outcome. Failure As a Stepping Stone To Success Discovering what works requires that you understand the casual links between inputs and outputs. When it comes to searching for cause-effect relationships, perhaps the most suitable model that emerges is the method of experimentation that allows the most efficient scientific progress, the scientific method as a model for discovery. ... More Learning Opportunities
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A major American enterprise with a diverse group of huge businesses, GE is steeped in a learning culture and it is this fact that makes GE a unique company. As Jack Welch puts it: "What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."

Top 10 Essential Requirements To Be A Great Strategic Thinker Essential Element #4: You must have an extremely high level of awareness of what is happening around you and be open to absorbing all that you can. In any business, there are clues, often subtle, both internal and external to help guide future direction and to identify opportunities. Great strategic thinkers take all of this in and then they set aside time to think about all the experience and information to guide them in the planning and working on the issues, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead... More Purpose Opportunity discovery is at the heart of the opportunity approach to business development. This needs to be a natural element in your company's range of activities.

Honing Your Competitive Edge Discovering and taking advantage of opportunities that others don't see is a key to developing and honing your competitive edge, no matter what industry you're in or what your role is. Seeing and seizing opportunities are skills that can be applied universally, if you have the curiosity, commitment, and a framework. Optimistic Thinking Changing your perspective is the key to finding success in seeming failure. "Optimistic thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover opportunities in problems." Due to optimistic positive thinking, problems will become merely challenging opportunities that you can turn to your advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate your creativity for finding better ways to live. SWOT Questions What trends do you see in your industry? What trends do you foresee?... More Learning Opportunities A major American enterprise with a diverse group of huge businesses, GE is steeped in a learning culture and it is this fact that makes GE a unique company. As Jack Welch puts it: "What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage." Turning Failures To Opportunities: 3 Steps 1. Get rid of all negative emotions and lean: There is no failure, only feedback!... More Experimentation: The Key to Discovery Experimentation means trying something new and unproven and acknowledging that you cannot reliably predict the outcome. Discovering what works requires that you understand the casual links between inputs and outputs. When it comes to searching for cause-effect relationships, perhaps the most suitable model that emerges is the method of experimentation that allows the most efficient scientific progress, the scientific method as a model for discovery. ... More Case in Point Amazon.com
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Amazon.com broke the rules of the book business by using the Internet rather than conventional distribution channels. The company was founded by Jeff Bezos, a computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University. Bezos had moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D.E.Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. He didnt know much about the Internet. But he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Not knowing much more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience. The Art of Innovation: 9 Truths By: Guy Kawasaki Let a hundred flowers blossom. I stole this from Chairman Mao. Innovators need to be flexible about how people use their products. Avon created Skin So Soft to soften skin, but when parents used it as an insect repellant, Avon went with the flow. Apple thought it created a spreadsheet/database/wordprocessing computer; but, come to find out, customers used it as a desktop publishing machine. The lesson is: Don't be proud. Let a hundred flowers blossom... More Case in Point Dell Computer Corporation "Our success is due, in part, to not just an ability but a willingness to look at things differently," writes Michael Dell , the Founder & CEO of Dell Computer Corporation. "I believe opportunity is part instinct and part immersion - in an industry, a subject, or an area of expertise. Dell is proof that people can learn to reorganize and take advantage of opportunities that others are convinced don't exist. You don't have to be a genius, or a visionary, or even a college graduate to think unconventionally. You just need a framework and a dream."
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