1. Global Innovation Management
Toolbox Workout #1

2. Create an innovation that meets predefined specifications
GOAL
Create an innovation that meets predefined specifications
METHOD
Use assumption reversals to provide insight

3. Your tool: Assumption reversal
Reversing your assumptions gives you a new tool that enables you to:
Escape from looking at a challenge in the traditional way
Free up information so that it can come together in new ways
Think provocatively: you can take a novel position and then work out its implications
Look for a breakthrough

4. Your company: Overview
Cycle corporation …
Owns a chain of 50 bicycle shops
Has a good reputation for:
Large selection
Service
Accessories
Is a chain of specialty stores serving the local community
Is not a low cost seller

5. Your company: Key financial statistics
… Trends have started to worry management
Sales
($mil)
Volume (000)
Operating Profit (%)
Sales /
Sq meter ($)
2003 50
200
25%
5000
2004 45
19%
3300
2005 35
175
13%
1500

6. Your company: Why sales have declined
Customers’ need for a bike is often satisfied with one purchase
Aging of the company’s customer base means that many no longer ride a bicycle
Urban sprawl has made using a bicycle for quick trips to work, store, or post office difficult, because the distances are too great

7. Your task: Assumption reversal exercise
State the major challenges involved in marketing this product or service to your customer base
List your assumptions
Challenge your fundamental assumptions
Reverse each assumption. Write down the opposite of each one
Record differing viewpoints that might prove useful to you
Find a way to accomplish each reversal
Make each of these methods of accomplishing a reversal into a new product-service for the company

8. Presentation
Prepare a paper which details the three best product-service innovations that you have created
Include the following:
How they look
What customer market would buy, and why
How this expands the company’s market and reverses its downward slide in sales
How this makes the company more profitable