How do you make sure your business stays relevant in the face of continuous change and disruption? You find ways of keeping customers close, being a source of new value and experiences that they appreciate. A powerful approach to accomplish this is continuously thinking beyond industry boundaries, norms, and traditions. Doing it leads to the discovery of intersections – new market space created by the combination of previously separate offerings.

A recent example of such a move is Lowe’s announcement that it will be opening mini Petco shops within some if its stores. The logic being that DIY homeowners can bring their favorite animal companions to Lowe’s, making the visit a more fun and more productive experience.

See this article for more:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/27/lowes-will-open-mini-petco-shops-inside-some-stores.html

#markettransformation #smartstrategy #customerexperience #petindustry #innovation 

The opossum is a strange animal.  Its principal line of defense against potential predators is feigning death.  While an ingenious and innovative psychological deterrent, this has at least two significant risks if not followed up by subsequent innovations. 

First, it banks on predators’ tastes not changing over time.  But what if a stiff, carcass-like appearance eventually becomes an appetite enhancer and not suppressant for savage beasts? 

Second, the opossum’s ploy can only work as long as other animals of similarly low rank on the food chain don’t decide to imitate it.  Because if every creature in the path of some leopard or a wolf pack started to mysteriously drop dead, those predators sooner or later would begin to get mighty suspicious, and the cover would be fatally blown.

So, is your business like an opossum? Does it have a clearly distinct and unconventional strategy and market offering? And, are you continuously refreshing and re-imagining what you do, in order to stay relevant to your target audience?

#innovation #transformation #leadership #creativity #strategy

I had a really fun conversation with Brendan McGurgan, Director and Co Founder of Simple Scaling, as the guest of his Podcast show.

The episode has just been published, and I invite you to listen to our hard hitting and faced paced banter on how to re-imagine boundaries, engage creativity and turn crisis into opportunity for your business:

http://scalexinsiderpodcast.libsyn.com/gabor-george-burt-how-to-reimagine-boundaries-and-develop-creativity-when-scaling-a-business

#entrepreneurship #highgrowth #transformation #leadership #lifelonglearning #smartstrategy 

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 comic example, and a way of perhaps inspiring investment near Tonga after the devastation of the recent tsunami, let’s consider the International Date Line and its possible application for creating compelling new value within the work space 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 #tonga

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