Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic of High Growth

How do you sustain high growth and high profits? According to Kim and Mauborgne in the January - February 1997 issue of Harvard Business Review, the answer is to approach strategy using value innovation. This value innovation focus is not on beating competitors, but on adding quantum leaps in value for the customer. Value innovators look for powerful new ideas that offer great benefit to the customer. Value innovators want to dominate the market by offering great increases in value.

The authors say examine the factors which impact your value curve, such as:

Ask four questions about the factors on the value curve:

  1. What can be eliminated?

  2. What can be reduced?

  3. What can be moved well above industry standards?

  4. What can we create that has never been offered?

And, work on one of the three platforms where value innovation can occur: · Product - Often companies only focus here for innovation · Service - Make the experience completely different and irresistible · Delivery - Drive delivery time down significantly

This is an excellent article on strategic planning and strategic focus. As you work on your strategic planning, consider bringing value innovation into your planning process. It may help bring innovation and new insight to your company's direction.

Significant Gains from Business Process Improvement

We are assisting a client with a Business Process Improvement project looking at processes from order entry to shipping of the finished product. And, where are the significant gains?

  • Driving down cycle times to quickly ship the product to the customer

  • Expanding standardization to reduce costs and improve efficiencies

  • Implementing teams to solve problems in scheduling, quality assurance, purchasing and cost estimating.

These critical success factors are used to measure performance as processes are examined:

  • Effectiveness - Meets internal and external customer's needs and is continually improved.

  • Efficiency - Most output for a minimum input and waste is reduced.

  • Adaptable - Flexible to changing customer needs.