In a recent blog post that first appeared on Harvard Business Blogging Network we discuss International Development. Trying to find solutions for the problems faced by people living at the bottom of the pyramid is frustrating and hugely expensive; experts say that three out of four development projects in Africa fail. PlayPump, a children’s carousel designed to help pump clean water in Africa is a typical example. Despite getting $16 million in funding, it failed to gain traction.
The Renaissance Innovator
Thoughts, examples and updates on the Renaissance Innovation Method
Posts by Serguei Netessine
The Geolocation is Enabling Retail Business Model Innovation
Serguei Netessine
Posted on November 13, 2014
As we describe in our recent Blog on INSEAD@Knowledge, in category after category, Amazon has steadily eroded the market share of traditional bricks-and-mortar retail chains, which seem to be in a state of irreversible decline. Much of the online giant’s competitive advantage is based on its access to and mastery of rich customer data. Traditional retailers know relatively little about their customers, unless they have a loyalty card and actually buy something – and even this knowledge comes late, after a purchase is made. They have no way to cross sell, recommend new products, or target advertising. Unlike Amazon, they can’t tell if a potential customer visits the store or passes by it without buying anything. But all that is about to change because…
Categories: Examples
The iPhone 6 is due in September. And this forthcoming event stimulated our recent blog post on Harvard Blog Network. The build-up to its launch will almost certainly follow the Steve Jobs M.O. Device specifications will remain a closely guarded secret until the launch date (unless an employee forgets his phone at a bar). There will be long lines at stores. We probably won’t be able to actually get the product for a couple of months after the launch. And, of course, users (we) will have no input into what we actually get; Steve Jobs’ dictum that “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them” is still an act of faith for Apple’s management. But is this the only way…
We could not miss the news of acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook, so we covered it in the recent post on HBR Blogging Network. With $19 billion, Facebook could have purchased Sony or Gap or four aircraft carriers. Instead, it bought WhatsApp, a tiny startup that so far had accumulated barely $60 million in funding, mostly from Sequoia. This is nuts, you might say; although the world of mobile messaging is upon us, that is an awful lot of money. But think about what exactly Facebook is buying:
Categories: Examples
Would “back to basics” be a superior business model for Groupon?
Serguei Netessine
Posted on December 31, 2013
To finish the year with a blog post, we recently discussed Groupon’s business model on HBR blogging network. Not long ago, there was this multi-billion dollar company called Groupon that was going to revolutionize the business of bargains, whose founders turned down a $6 Billion offer from Google. Yet the revolution never came.
Why Large Companies Struggle With Business Model Innovation
Serguei Netessine
Posted on September 28, 2013
After a brief summer hiatus, we are b
ack and blogging! As we describe in the recent blog post on HBR Network, innovation success stories are all strikingly similar: a bright idea, supported by a zealot-innovator who sees it through. The windfall of goodies follows. But failures happen for all sorts of reasons, and they often occur even when the idea is sound.
As we discuss in our recent blog post on HBR Blog Network, the death of over 800 people in the collapse of Rana Plaza, a building with garment factories in Bangladesh, spurred widespread outrage over working conditions in offshore factories. In the search for blame, many commentators point to the absence of building codes, lack of workplace safety rules, and the greed of US corporations. Many of the solutions proposed are around paying people more to manufacture in the USA. But however well intentioned the ideas are, this is not the best use of one of the most productive workforces in the world. The true solution, we think, lies in understanding the changed nature of modern supply chains and identifying new business models better…
As we discussed in our recent blog post on HBR Blogging Network, it finally seems that the uproar over Marissa Meyer’s diktat banning flexible work policies at Yahoo is dying down. While good arguments were made on both sides of the issue, what got lost in the charged debate was the potential for evolving traditional business models through changing the employee-employer relationship. Our research on identifying replicable templates for business model innovation shows that innovating how a company engages with its workforce is an often overlooked way of increasing business model performance. The basic structure of the firm-employee relationship has not changed much over the last 50 years. Relying on a forecast of organizational needs, firms select the nature and number of employees, who are…
Categories: Experiences, Others
Tesla’s Model S: Technology Outruns the Business Model
Serguei Netessine
Posted on February 26, 2013
In our recent blog post on HBR blogging network we discussed the Tesla Model S, which is arguably the most promising all-electric contender for a slice of the luxury sedan market, but was panned recently by New York Times reporter John Broder, who finished his test-drive on the back of a flatbed truck. Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla Motors, was quick to respond with accusations that the test was not performed under fair conditions. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the dispute, though, one thing is clear: Tesla has some way to go before it can get motorists to buy into its vision of an all-electric no-compromises luxury sedan.
In a recent blog post on Harvard Business Review we discuss one of these frequent situations in which business model innovation is necessary to bring technological innovation to life. In case you missed it, the 2012 World Food Prize went to Daniel Hillel, an Israeli scientist who, in his own words, “…helped to develop the principle of shifting from low-frequency, high-volume irrigation to high-frequency, low-volume irrigation”, the system known as drip irrigation. Irrigation is a big deal in many countries: in just the last 50 years, the world population has doubled and irrigation water is increasingly becoming a critical constraint in many parts of the world. Study after study has shown that improved irrigation systems like drip irrigation can set in motion a new…
Categories: Examples
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