FAMILIARITY CAN HIDE VALUE
Innovation conversations naturally look forward. New technologies. New products. New markets. New business models.
But companies accumulate something else while operating year after year: capabilities. Customer knowledge. Data. Relationships. Processes. Market experience. Distribution. Intellectual property. Commercial insight. Operational expertise.
Individually, these assets may appear ordinary. Together, they may not.
The longer something has existed inside an organisation, the easier it becomes to regard it simply as part of the business. A capability built for one purpose may have another application. Existing customer relationships may contain opportunities nobody originally designed them to create. Operational data may reveal something commercially significant. Knowledge sitting in one part of the organisation may have value somewhere else entirely.
The interesting question is therefore not always: What should we build next? It may be: What have we already built without recognising its full commercial potential?
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE DOES NOT ALWAYS ARRIVE FROM OUTSIDE
Technology will continue to change rapidly. Competitors will gain access to many of the same platforms, models and tools.
That may make something else increasingly important: the unique combination of assets, knowledge and commercial capabilities already embedded inside each organisation.
Those combinations are considerably harder to copy. But first, they have to be recognised.
PERHAPS THE SEARCH SHOULD START CLOSER TO HOME
Businesses understandably scan markets for the next opportunity. Sometimes that is exactly where it will be found.
But before looking exclusively outside the organisation, another question may be worth asking: What could already exist inside your business that would look strategically valuable if you discovered it today?