One Innovation Era Ends; Another Begins
The Fast Company website has posted a fascinating article in which it is argued that we are coming to the end of an era where innovation is about products and services and embarking on a new age that focuses on what the author calls “behavioral business models”.
These models go beyond seeking to build better, faster, cheaper, stronger and longer-lasting and instead ask why consumers do what they do.
The article highlights a few famous examples by way of illustration:
- With iTunes, Apple did not invent a better digital format – it changed our relationship with how we listen to and buy music.
- Google didn’t invent search engines, but it did change how we interact with the Internet.
“All of these are examples of innovations in behavior that led to entirely new business models.”
Behavior-Based Model of Innovation
The article then shifts gear to point out how many companies are still stuck in a rut with the old model of innovation. But there is a remedy, and that lies with open innovation.
When an innovation process is open companies are more agile, act quicker and are freer to improvise.
But open innovation should be much more than garnering a few ideas from external experts; it’s about developing an innovation model that binds the market to the process of innovation.
“…it means that companies need to push the envelope of innovation based on observations of what a market’s behaviors are and then work closely with the market to identify how innovations can add value in unexpected ways.”
The full article can be found here.
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