Creating Breakaway Innovations Examples

The development manager of a domestic appliances business needed outside-the-box ideas and new concepts to broaden the market appeal of his products. We helped him define a structure for developing those ideas, from setting objectives to arranging and facilitating a series of creative workshops. Ultimately the customer generated over 450 ideas based on user insights in a series of short, transparent steps that senior management could follow. We then used functional models to help determine which of these concepts had most market potential. 10 distinct product concepts have been verified and 6 patent applications filed.

Before launching a new web service, a start-up in the wellness industry asked us to help analyze the existing market landscape and test its own strategy. We arranged an InnoGame – a strategic role-playing game focusing on a pre-defined business arena. The InnoGame gave the customer a much greater insight into its competitors’ products and what made its own service stand out from the crowd. And by exploring various scenarios, the customer could test the robustness of its product strategy and identify exciting features for future generations. The customer gained a clear view of the market / business forces on its product before launch.

When a manufacturer in the personal care sector realized a key product was protected by interlinking patents belonging to a competitor, it approached us to find ways to avoid infringing those patents. Working with patent attorneys, we analyzed the existing patents and targeted creative techniques that would circumvent them. A multidisciplinary team including patent attorneys, the customer’s engineers and our own specialists followed a structured way of working to create a list of concepts covering short- and long-term opportunities. Consequently, the customer brought a new product to market within a year with no IP issues.