Tag Archive | blue ocean strategy

Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship

Sep12

Innovation is all about making a difference in people life‘s, and it starts with an idea.

This idea needs to resonate with customer needs, create the appropriate market attraction, find the right value network to grow, justify its financial costs and last but not least have a potential return on the investment.

For that many aspects about innovative ideas need to be understood, starting with the person who take the idea from being an abstract idea to be a reality (AKA the entrepreneur) and what qualities he / she should have. What innovation means, and how it can create a real value for all of its stakeholders. What is the industry context we are going to work in and what are the market forces that we need to take for. How we are going to build a sustainable business model to support growing our dreams and business. Last but not least, how we are going to find a real market needs and get the appropriate customer understanding.

All these and more were the topics within this interesting course “Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies” which was named #1  Entrepreneurship Course on Coursera by CourseTalk’s “Top Rated” MOOCs.

This blog post is an attempt to go through the course material in a moderate way and provide the key insights and knowledge that you can take with you within your entrepreneurial journey! So I hope you find it useful.

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Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Sep12

Sustainable healthy life is basic human necessity. We all want to live healthy, stay health and to be healthy.

Healthcare is one of the aspects that can help us achieve the healthy living we look for as civilized modern citizens. We all imagine a healthcare system that is accessible, affordable, efficient with less human errors, less medication errors, better treatment / diagnostic methods and better ways of personalizing the whole healthcare experience for us as individuals.

That been said, the reality differ from the expectations! The healthcare systems today has many challenges that may seem paralyzing and very hard to overcome, but from an innovators point of view we need to see the elephant in the room, we need to see the opportunity for innovation in healthcare from the lens of these challenges, as always, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the return will be!

The Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) aim to assist individuals and/or small teams in the identification, development, and promotion of products, processes, and procedures that address the healthcare system needs, by providing a framework for innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare.

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Cut the corners first – Harness the power of futures thinking

May6

mediaentertainment signal board

“Futures are about knowledge. We must be inspired about futures. Futures are also about storytelling. “ explained lecturers Minna Koskelo and Anu K. Nousiainen.

In the course Futures thinking and foresights methodologies we learned how futures thinking is linked to service design and how it can be applied in business. Through hands-on workshops lot of new things were learnt and here are some key learning points.

Decision-making boosted up with futures foresights

Futures foresight methods can help companies to make right decisions to captivate their own blue ocean strategies. When identifying preferable futures and setting trend indicators to follow, companies can improve decision-making. Futures insights offers companies more flexibility to the strategy, support their risk management and produce new business ideas.

There is not just one future, but a whole range of possibilities. Futures foresight is a process of observing current world, finding new curves of change and seeking for opportunities of tomorrow. It is not just about guessing and predicting, but it is systematic approach that combines multiple fields and methods in order to produce proposals of possible, probable and preferable futures, which organizations can use to make right decisions.

Futures research is a combination of intuition and documented information. It is a creative discipline. There are various frameworks of futures foresight process where one can choose the most suitable one and it can be applied in the innovation process together with service design methods.

Trends and signals: hints of new business opportunities

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Strategic Roadmap for Startups

Nov14

by Abdalla, Man, Markus, Juha and Theodros

The term “Service economy” has changed the mindsets of companies’ strategic thinking in the 21st century. It reflects from the fact that in industrialized economies, manufacturers are focusing more and more on add-on services when trying to defend their business against the continuously growing service sector. Market is a battlefield and new challengers are entering from every corner.

Markets are changing rapidly and constantly forcing companies to challenge their existing business models. Today many of the startup companies are founded on the basis of innovative service concepts, aiming to create their own market and challenge the structures of traditional business competition. This blog post focuses on providing a strategic roadmap to startups on their journey to become a forerunner in service business. Continue reading →

Hey executive! A few tips to make your organization strategically agile

Nov5

“The only thing constant is change”
– Heraclitus

We know your job as an executive is getting tougher and tougher no matter in what business you´re in. Operating environment is getting more and more competitive, fast based, complex, turbulent and blurry. You have probably noticed that the “old” way of thinking about the strategy and competitiveness won´t guarantee your organization´s success anymore. Strategy can´t no longer be done as a periodic planning exercise conducted in your organizations boardroom behind locked doors; planning for half a year, implementing for 3-5 years and then evaluating the strategy and building a new one – there is no time!

Say hello to agile strategic thinking! Through it, your organization is able to make fast turns and to transform itself without losing momentum. And we don´t mean simply adjusting to change, but thriving on the waves of change and becoming number one. Continue reading →

Revolutionary Coffee Cup

Nov3
Coffee Cup

Photo by Eva

By Tero, Eva, Pingshan, Outi and Mari

This is going to be an unusual day for you! Because you don’t start checking your emails or Facebook, or logging into your Skype, MSN or whatever instant communication system you use at work. But look over the edge of your coffee cup and dare to discover the possibilities in your daily routines.

You Are More Than Just You

Sometimes even the smallest matter can make a difference in your work or in your organization. Take the distance to see what your habits are, and then unlearn the bad habits. Easier said than done, but try to identify what you could do differently. This way you have more space to learn new things and new point of views. You are probably reachable online all your work day. But what if you change all that and take a small piece of the day and be offline. Take the time and fine tune the mindset. Think why you are working as you are? Why weren’t you part of the meeting, handling tasks which produce the upcoming tasks for you? Surely there could’ve been some input to be said. Maybe you have some new thoughts about the existing service offering? Be brave and act with courage. Who other than you and specifically why not you should stand out? Continue reading →

Fishing for a circus strategy

Oct15

“The show must go on”, is a very common phrase in a show or performance. It means that the audience has to be kept entertained at all times. But, it doesn’t say what happens when the show gets old? How does a show performance keep selling tickets after repetitive shows and apply this phrase? But most importantly, how does the same performance creates new value for the same audience? In other words, no one wants to go to the circus twice to see the same show.

A circus for instance, would quickly run out of business if it the shows were constantly changing to keep spectators coming back. Renovation, show quality and improvisation could very well be a good description the main elements of circuses strategy. Their main objective it’s to give the audience value. Generate a positive emotional experience that is never to be forgotten, make them come back again and again. This is why the circuses still survive nowadays. Continue reading →