Global Innovation Management Toolbox Workout #7

Breathe new life into an old product GOAL Breathe new life into an old product METHOD Re-differentiation and re-segmentation

Understanding your old product (1) Choose a particular physical product (using the internet or a book as a source) List each of the main attributes/features that are of importance to either producer or consumer of the product Write short description of the main uses of the product

Understanding your old product (2) Quickly think through: Why customers buy this product (be honest) How customers buy this product (i.e., the consumption chain) Complementary products required to market this product Competences your firm needs to compete

Your task: Re-differentiation Create two new re-differentiated products by choosing different objectives as a basis for re-differentiation You re-differentiate by changing features (components) and the way they are put together into a product (architecture) Features alone do not contain any information about why they are important or what objectives they were created in order to satisfy. You should re-differentiate by selecting new objectives, such as: Reducing cost (how?) Creating a new, perhaps narrower, set of markets Positioning the new product among its competitors Channging the way consumers use, purchase, search for or otherwise interact with the product

Your task: Re-segmentation For each of the two new products (objectives; feature sets; architecture), re-segment the market by answering the following questions: How will customers use the re-differentiated product? What new customer groups will you generate with this redifferentiated product? What old customer groups will you alienate? What new customer groups have the Growth potential? Profit potential? Revenue potential?

Remember More is not better – it’s just more confusing Simple is good Do not redifferentiate by adding features only. Instead … Change existing features Get rid of useless or redundant features Simplify Improve the human interface (In the process, you may find a feature to add)

Presentation Prepare a 5- to 10-minute presentation in which you: Describe your two new products Draw pictures of your re-differentiated products, including a list of features with pointers to where they are implemented on the product Describe briefly how your group managed creativity when approaching this task Present a maximum of 1-2 slides per task (hand written) For the sake of time, please to not include anything else