When pursuing meaningful innovation, you don’t need to invent anything outright. Rather, you can take the Innovation Shortcut: Seek out fresh combinations of already existing components to generate unprecedented customer value.

As a humorous example, consider the International Date Line, and its possible application for creating compelling new value within the office rental market. Essentially, by crossing this imaginary line you can gain or lose an entire day. By building an office complex right on it, a real estate developer could offer the new combination of two enticing components: An exotic, off-shore location, plus a flexible solution for effective time management. 

Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would certainly be exotic. And on the Date Line, whenever overwhelmed with work or hopelessly behind schedule, office occupants could simply walk over to the part of their office that was on the other side of the line, and immediately have an extra 24 hours to catch up. Conversely when having little going on, they would just step across the line in the other direction, and would instantly find themselves one day in the future.

#businesshumor #leadership #strategy #transformation #innovation

One of the key attributes of the SLINGSHOT Framework is its universal applicability. Organizations of all sizes from start-ups to multinationals operating in any market or industry can benefit from its intuitive logic and powerful methodology to re-imagine boundaries and shape the future of their environment.

In contrast, consider a business philosophy with far less applicability. There was once a well-known shepherd in the Alpes who would go to the top of high mountains to buy sheep from the mountain dwellers, then bring his collected flock down to the valley and sell them for a healthy profit at village markets. He would always pontificate that the secret of his success was to “buy high, sell low.”

#innovation #businesshumor #strategy #transformation #leadership #businessgrowth

The Covid pandemic has greatly impacted consumer behavior, and accelerated the shift to online commerce. This has produced immense pressure on B2C companies to retain customer traffic to their retail locations. Forward thinking companies understand that they have to do this by creating irresistible experiences that customers cannot get by shopping online.

One example of such a retail environment is LVMH’s recently opened La Samaritaine, the iconic luxury department store in Paris, where the fusion of fashion and food is central to a special multisensory store experience: https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/the-lvmh-game-plan-for-la-samaritaine

How about you? In what way are you redesigning your customers’ experience to give them aspirational, irresistible reasons to continue visiting your retail locations?

#customerexperience #fashion #smartstrategy #leadership #businesstransformation

Time Magazine just announced its Heroes of the Year for 2021, the four scientist ‘Miracle Workers’ who made the Covid vaccine possible. Among them is Katalin Karikó, a fellow Hungarian whom I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with.

Katalin is a biochemist researcher whose trailblazing work over the past decades was fundamental for the rapid development of the vaccine. Her relentless vision, courage and determination in the face of tremendous obstacles along the way is story of true inspiration.

See the TIME feature here:
https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2021-vaccine-scientists/ 

#heroes #covidvaccine #courage #inspiration #leadership

Would you pay $200 for french-fries or €5,000 for a burger? Your rational response is to say ‘no way!’. But what if these food items deliver the most opulent, dreamlike culinary experience you ever had? Would you be tempted then?

So called ‘collectible experiences’ – where both the price and the indulgence of common consumables or services are raised to outlandish heights – is fast gaining popularity. Demand for such over-the-top experiences is being fueled by the pandemic – inspiring people to live more in the moment – and by new, imagination-expanding offerings – such as commercial space travel. It unlocks a fascinating dimension of consumer behavior, where high price becomes the catalyst for demand, rather than its deterrent.

Here is a really good, recent article on this phenomenon: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210823-why-people-pay-thousands-for-opulent-experience-foods

#customerexperience #consumerbehavior #spacetravel #smartstrategy #marketinnovation