New Book by Business Innovator and Scholar Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
New York, NY, February 16, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Why do some companies have their fingers on the pulse of the marketplace, offering innovative – and profitable – products and services that customers can’t live without, while other companies tread water, struggling to stay competitive?
Erich Joachimsthaler, business scholar and founder of the consulting firm Vivaldi Partners, argues in Hidden In Plain Sight: How to Find and Execute Your Company’s Next Big Growth Strategy (Harvard Business School Press, May 2007) that opportunities for innovation and growth are everywhere. The problem is that most companies are blind to them, looking at the world through the lens of their own technologies, products, and successes, miscalculating what their customers – whether consumers or other businesses – really want and need.
Joachimsthaler contends that companies focus too much attention on making incremental improvements to existing products – irrespective of whether this is meaningful to the customer. They chip away at the most minute advantage in the hope of extending the life of an innovation – initially finding success, but ultimately having the rug pulled from beneath them as a competitor develops an entirely new approach.
In Hidden In Plain Sight, Joachimsthaler, who has spent twenty-five years studying and working with companies in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, consumer goods, retailing, financial services, health-care, and telecommunications, helps companies reorient their vision, showing them how to develop an “outside-in” approach that begins with understanding the day-to-day behaviors and unmet needs of their customers. He illustrates his methodology, which he calls “demand-first innovation and growth” (DIG), with in-depth examples from such innovators as Allianz Group, Apple, Axe, GE Healthcare, BMW, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Netflix and others.
By using the DIG model, companies can identify untapped customer demands – even demands that have been unarticulated or unexpressed – and then develop products and services that satisfy them. But implementing the DIG model does more than simply identify customer needs. A three-part method, DIG offers a systematic and repeatable process that helps companies embed the pursuit of customer advantage deep within their organizations. DIG consists of:
*Creating the demand landscape – Forget traditional methods of market research and modes of segmenting customers according to age or lifestyle, and put aside your company’s existing offerings, says Joachimsthaler. Instead, focus on what people do each day and how they live. Hidden In Plain Sight lays out specific strategies for becoming an unbiased observer of people’s consumption and usage behavior. For example, Frito-Lay used in-depth “day in the life diaries,” coupled with videotapes of convenience store shoppers, to learn an enormous amount about people’s snacking habits and attitudes. This enabled them to find new and better ways to engage with – and sell to – their customers.
*Reframing the opportunity space – Learn to see the maximum range of areas where a product or brand can be made relevant in the context of people’s lives or work. Hidden In Plain Sight offers structured innovative-thinking tools to help businesses perceive the real opportunities that lay before them. Joachimsthaler explains how global insurance company Allianz used these techniques to unearth nearly forty practical new product and service concepts and opportunities – paving the way for its new, sustainable growth path.
*Formulating the strategic blueprint for action – Once new opportunities for growth have been pinpointed, it’s necessary to develop a strategy for action. Joachimsthaler notes that the demand-first perspective often challenges many of a company’s fundamental beliefs about strategy, organizational principles, systems, and processes, but in doing so, leads to radical and far better approaches to implementation and execution. Using case studies from financial services firm State Street and from Unilever’s introduction of Axe, Joachimsthaler demonstrates how two very different companies were able to create and implement a blueprint that led to significant growth.
“Business successes themselves can generate a smokescreen that makes it difficult to see even the biggest opportunities for innovation and growth – even though they are right there, hidden in plain sight,” maintains Joachimsthaler. Hidden In Plain Sight offers proven, hands-on techniques for uncovering these concealed opportunities and using them to create and sustain a culture of growth.
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About the Author
Erich Joachimsthaler, Ph.D. has spent twenty-five years investigating why some innovations, business strategies, marketing and branding tactics hit the mark, while others do not. As a scholar, he has held faculty positions at the University of Southern California, Institutes Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) in Barcelona, and The Darden School, University of Virginia.
Joachimsthaler is the founder of Vivaldi Partners, an innovation strategy and marketing firm with headquarters in New York City and offices in Munich, Düsseldorf, London, Zurich, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Buenos Aires. The author of nearly sixty articles, he is the co-author of Brand Leadership: The Next Level of the Brand Revolution with David A. Aaker. He has been interviewed by such publications as The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Advertising Age.
Joachimsthaler holds degrees in economics, statistics, and business administration. He received a master’s degree in quantitative methods and marketing, and a doctorate in business administration from the University of Kansas. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Business School.
For further information please contact:
Delfina Zweifel
Corporate Marketing & Communications Manager
+1 646 278 2978 voice
dzweifel@vivaldipartners.com
Hidden In Plain Sight:
How to Find and Execute Your Company’s Next Big Growth Strategy
By: Erich Joachimsthaler
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication date: May 2007
“This book will help you define entirely new opportunity spaces by imagining potentially new innovations – from strategies, business models, and comprehensive portfolios of new products and services to marketing tactics and branding programs – that cut through the clutter... You will ‘resee’ your customers and discover the biggest opportunities for growth that are right in front of you.”
-- Erich Joachimsthaler, from the preface to Hidden In Plain Sight
Erich Joachimsthaler, business scholar and founder of the consulting firm Vivaldi Partners, argues in Hidden In Plain Sight: How to Find and Execute Your Company’s Next Big Growth Strategy (Harvard Business School Press, May 2007) that opportunities for innovation and growth are everywhere. The problem is that most companies are blind to them, looking at the world through the lens of their own technologies, products, and successes, miscalculating what their customers – whether consumers or other businesses – really want and need.
Joachimsthaler contends that companies focus too much attention on making incremental improvements to existing products – irrespective of whether this is meaningful to the customer. They chip away at the most minute advantage in the hope of extending the life of an innovation – initially finding success, but ultimately having the rug pulled from beneath them as a competitor develops an entirely new approach.
In Hidden In Plain Sight, Joachimsthaler, who has spent twenty-five years studying and working with companies in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, consumer goods, retailing, financial services, health-care, and telecommunications, helps companies reorient their vision, showing them how to develop an “outside-in” approach that begins with understanding the day-to-day behaviors and unmet needs of their customers. He illustrates his methodology, which he calls “demand-first innovation and growth” (DIG), with in-depth examples from such innovators as Allianz Group, Apple, Axe, GE Healthcare, BMW, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Netflix and others.
By using the DIG model, companies can identify untapped customer demands – even demands that have been unarticulated or unexpressed – and then develop products and services that satisfy them. But implementing the DIG model does more than simply identify customer needs. A three-part method, DIG offers a systematic and repeatable process that helps companies embed the pursuit of customer advantage deep within their organizations. DIG consists of:
*Creating the demand landscape – Forget traditional methods of market research and modes of segmenting customers according to age or lifestyle, and put aside your company’s existing offerings, says Joachimsthaler. Instead, focus on what people do each day and how they live. Hidden In Plain Sight lays out specific strategies for becoming an unbiased observer of people’s consumption and usage behavior. For example, Frito-Lay used in-depth “day in the life diaries,” coupled with videotapes of convenience store shoppers, to learn an enormous amount about people’s snacking habits and attitudes. This enabled them to find new and better ways to engage with – and sell to – their customers.
*Reframing the opportunity space – Learn to see the maximum range of areas where a product or brand can be made relevant in the context of people’s lives or work. Hidden In Plain Sight offers structured innovative-thinking tools to help businesses perceive the real opportunities that lay before them. Joachimsthaler explains how global insurance company Allianz used these techniques to unearth nearly forty practical new product and service concepts and opportunities – paving the way for its new, sustainable growth path.
*Formulating the strategic blueprint for action – Once new opportunities for growth have been pinpointed, it’s necessary to develop a strategy for action. Joachimsthaler notes that the demand-first perspective often challenges many of a company’s fundamental beliefs about strategy, organizational principles, systems, and processes, but in doing so, leads to radical and far better approaches to implementation and execution. Using case studies from financial services firm State Street and from Unilever’s introduction of Axe, Joachimsthaler demonstrates how two very different companies were able to create and implement a blueprint that led to significant growth.
“Business successes themselves can generate a smokescreen that makes it difficult to see even the biggest opportunities for innovation and growth – even though they are right there, hidden in plain sight,” maintains Joachimsthaler. Hidden In Plain Sight offers proven, hands-on techniques for uncovering these concealed opportunities and using them to create and sustain a culture of growth.
###
About the Author
Erich Joachimsthaler, Ph.D. has spent twenty-five years investigating why some innovations, business strategies, marketing and branding tactics hit the mark, while others do not. As a scholar, he has held faculty positions at the University of Southern California, Institutes Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) in Barcelona, and The Darden School, University of Virginia.
Joachimsthaler is the founder of Vivaldi Partners, an innovation strategy and marketing firm with headquarters in New York City and offices in Munich, Düsseldorf, London, Zurich, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Buenos Aires. The author of nearly sixty articles, he is the co-author of Brand Leadership: The Next Level of the Brand Revolution with David A. Aaker. He has been interviewed by such publications as The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Advertising Age.
Joachimsthaler holds degrees in economics, statistics, and business administration. He received a master’s degree in quantitative methods and marketing, and a doctorate in business administration from the University of Kansas. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Business School.
For further information please contact:
Delfina Zweifel
Corporate Marketing & Communications Manager
+1 646 278 2978 voice
dzweifel@vivaldipartners.com
Hidden In Plain Sight:
How to Find and Execute Your Company’s Next Big Growth Strategy
By: Erich Joachimsthaler
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication date: May 2007
“This book will help you define entirely new opportunity spaces by imagining potentially new innovations – from strategies, business models, and comprehensive portfolios of new products and services to marketing tactics and branding programs – that cut through the clutter... You will ‘resee’ your customers and discover the biggest opportunities for growth that are right in front of you.”
-- Erich Joachimsthaler, from the preface to Hidden In Plain Sight
Contact
Vivaldi Partners
Delfina Zweifel
646 278 2978
www.vivaldipartners.com
Delfina Zweifel
646 278 2978
www.vivaldipartners.com
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