Scaling your Innovation Opportunity Chain

In order for business’ to grow profitably they must devise ways for scaling existing business processes. The mechanisms for supporting growth are relatively known but the tools available to systematically identify, design, and execute such growth initiatives remains ‘in development.’ A Scaling Model Canvas can help business’ build the needed processes, competencies, and infrastructures needed to support continued growth.

Scaling processes & business methods helps to decrease costs, expand market reach, and strengthen the business’ position in the sector. These savings can be used to focus on core competencies to strengthen the business’ competitive advantage or passed on by way of reduced prices to the customer. These savings can also be used to expand on the business’ future product/service offerings in addition to research & development, etc.

The Scaling Model Canvas

The following Scaling Model Canvas is grouped into the following sections:

• Offerings & Configuration: Represents the core products & services offered by the business.
• Diversification: Represents the scope & breadth of the different products & services lines (or combination) offered by the business.
• Outsourcing: Represents the “non-core” areas outsourced by the business in order to improve profitability, efficiency, and productivity.

An example includes the industry of Business Consulting. Scaling in this industry is often completed through:

• Standardization of service offerings
• Standardization of methods and practices
• Standardization of procedures
• Standardizing processes for developing Innovation
• Standardizing methods for evaluating performance

Scaling can also be created through the offering of more products or services based on core competencies & strengths owned by the organization. The diversification of shared products & service offerings strengthens the organization’s profit margin, improves efficiency, and heightens an opportunity for more productivity as consultants are able to work on extra projects. Examples of more products & services that support scaling include the following:

• Training & Workshops
• Software & Automation Tools
• Publications & Reports
• Installation & Setup Assistance

Outsourcing “Non-Core” areas (key to the business’ competitive advantage) can also help the business scale and focus on areas that generate more business, profit, and customer retention.

Areas that businesses (in the consulting and other areas) often outsource include the following:

Scaling can help respond to changes in the business, industry, and supply chain if the team has the data and insights necessary to both evaluate these changes, understand their implications, and adjust accordingly. Scaling can also be challenging, and costly, if constraints and value drives are inadequately managed.

What is insource or outsourced can change over time. Standards and specifications can also change over time as new products, services, and features are offered in the market. Evaluating opportunities across the business model, value chain, and supply chain remains ongoing if efficiencies are to be sustained. Strengthening the company’s innovation opportunity chain can help remain nimble and adaptive in industries that continue to change.

The Innovation Opportunity Chain

Opportunities to improve scalability, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and satisfaction exist throughout the business product/service lifecycle. From ideation, through production, and up through use and replacement there remain opportunities to exceed customer expectations. The business that is able to identify and build upon these opportunities will have a competitive advantage.

The usability of your business products & services, and the customer’s experience throughout the product/service life-cycle, is determined by every component in your innovation stack. 

Selecting the right competencies, technologies, and services requires insight into your customer’s needs, industry and leading best practices, and a vision of what is needed to be successful in the future. 

Designing an effective Innovation Opportunity Chain is interdependent and relies on the organization’s commitment to building the necessary competencies to lead the future:

• Learning & Knowledge Management, 
• Skill Deployment and Continuous Improvement, and
• The Acquisition of New Competencies and Physical Assets in order to be Sustainable and Effective.

Building upon previous platforms the learning, knowledge, and added competencies become a competitive advantage for designing and delivering outstanding products & services.

Leveraging opportunities for innovation includes internal, external, and overlapping inter-dependencies. Several models have been promoted in the business literature over the past few decades.

• The Value Chain emphasizes the organization’s internal processes & procedures as executed by specialized areas and functions of the business.
• The Supply Chain Emphasizes the organization’s product & service delivery network and complements as well as builds upon the business’ internal value chain.
• An additional model, the 10-types of innovation (developed by Walters, Pickel, & Quinn 2013), represents an Innovation Opportunity Chain that builds upon the existing models and adds the customer journey map.

The literature on UX, or the User Experience, has long recognized the competitive advantage acquired by businesses that focus on the user experience when designing products & services. Lean processes and the customer development model similarly place customer feedback in the front of iterative product & service design. When all three of these models are contrasted and compared the business case opportunities to build, integrate, and deliver new innovative products, services, and processes is strengthened.

Scaling Model Canvas Interactive Planning Tool

When identifying opportunities for scaling and outsourcing it is crucial that non-core areas are identified. Core competencies represent the business’ competitive advantage and help differentiate why the customer purchases from your business instead of the competitor.

The following interactive planning tool can be used to begin a review of your company’s existing business model, products, and services, and the competencies & tools that both manage and deliver them. Use the goals tab to identify strategies to strengthen these areas and maintain your company’s competitive advantage.