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 from the “Examples” Category
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
We now have a date: September 9, the day that iPhone6 is expected to be launched. While there is a still a month to go , the iPhone launch circus and its usual cast of characters are all already in town. The tech media is leaping on every bit of information that can be inferred from the Apple supply chain about the potential specs of the phone (for the record we are expecting Apple to introduce a big screen brother to the current phone and produce it in record numbers). But the business press is decidedly less excited: a bigger iPhone is hardly the category busting game changer they have been calling for. Some have even gone as far as speculating that Apple under Tim Cook has lost its creative…
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…
Last week New Jersey started enforcing a ban on direct sales by Tesla Motors of its path-breaking model S. Tesla’s direct sales have also run into hot water in a number of other states: Ohio lawmakers are debating a ban on Tesla’s direct sales and Texas, Arizona, and Virginia are also opposed. Proponents of a ban on direct sales claim that they are acting in the interest of customers. But is it the interests of customers they’re following or rather the bidding of the powerful car dealership lobby?
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.
Amazon.com is in the headlines again because it started Sunday package deliveries in several large cities. This offering follows the company’s recent strategic decision to offer same day delivery to most US addresses. As a part of this strategy, the company is drastically increasing the number of warehouses all around the US. As we discussed in our forthcoming book, and this recent post on the HBR bloggers network. Amazon is in a class of its own when it comes to thinking about its business model. We are all accustomed to new offerings from Amazon.com: in fact, since its inception in 1995, Amazon has fundamentally changed its business model several times. At its inception, Amazon’s operation was organized around a “sell all, carry few” business…
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.
Two weeks back, Tesla Motors, the company behind the Tesla Model S, arguably the most promising all-electric challenger to the century-long domination of fossil-fuel cars, announced an innovative switching station based infrastructure that would bring its flagship product one step closer to being the first all-electric no-compromises luxury sedan. We were delighted to hear of this latest move by Tesla. Almost four months back, on this blog, we called for Tesla to complement the path-breaking technology in the Model S sedan with an innovative business model to match (Tesla’s Model S: Technology Outruns the Business Model). The proposed battery-swap system will allow a driver to replace a depleted battery with a fully charged battery in less than 90 seconds — faster than filling up a tank of gas…
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