If you want to improve your organization's innovation successes, how about going to school on your competitors?
Skeptical? Don’t be!
7 Things Competitors Can Teach You about Innovation
Here are 7 areas your competitors can teach you about innovation. You can answer these questions to better understand the pros and cons, whys and wherefores of how competitors in your industry are addressing innovation and what it means for your brand.
1. Where have competitors traditionally beat us to market with innovative ideas?
Based on the answer, look for reasons why competitors are beating your brand to market. Is your brand ruling out certain strategic moves, missing opportunities for innovation, or lagging during implementation? What do the answers suggest about innovating differently in the future?
2. Which innovations have come from traditional competitors versus newer players?
Generate a list from the past several years of significant innovations in your industry. Do this by asking various people in your business (or even your industry) for their recollections. Consolidate the lists into a timeline. Review the results to see which players are pursuing a competitive strategy based on innovation to drive change in your industry.
3. What signals did competitors make before introducing recent innovations?
Use your list from question 2 to look backward to recent innovations. What were competitors doing and saying prior to introducing these innovations. While you won't find them in every case, it's worthwhile to identify whether competitors have any corporate "tells" that signal their innovation moves before they reach the marketplace.
4. How would our competitors develop and introduce our brand’s newest innovation differently?
On one hand, if there are dramatically different innovation strategies competitors are using relative to yours, that could be VERY good. Alternatively, these differences could signal your brand is missing strategic opportunities. You need to look at the situation and judge which it is.
5. How long do competitors stick with an innovation that's not working?
Can you identify a pattern for how much time competitors allow newly-introduced innovations to thrive, survive, or die? Look for relationships (cost, visibility, etc.) that explain any pattern that might exist.
6. Are competitors introducing innovations we couldn't profitably produce and sell at comparable prices?
It's vital to assess whether your brand's inability to match the price of a competitor's recently-introduced innovation is because of its cost advantages, a difference in cost structure or allocations, a deliberately aggressive / share-gaining price, strategic brilliance, or stupidity. Any one or a combination of these suggests competitive strategy problems.
7. Have competitors introduced successful innovations with inferior features to ours?
If a competitor can introduce a successful innovation with seemingly fewer features than your offerings and still be successful, the competitor may have figured out customers are looking for something different. That difference may be a preference for simpler, cheaper, or easier to use innovations.
Competitive Strategy Lessons about Innovation
See what we mean?
Your competitors could be the best source you have to learn a lot more about how to improve your innovation successes in the future. – Mike Brown
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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.
