Global futurist. Innovative strategist. Bestselling author. Inspiring speaker.
Human skills will grow in value – complex problem solving and creativity, emotional intelligence and partnership building. Let machines do the simple, repetitive tasks.
In a world obsessed with the potential of technologies, it is human ingenuity that will drive real progress – both in unlocking the power of tech, and in being simply human. Here are 4 extracts from my new book “Business Recoded” exploring what it means to be human in today’s digital world.
Trader Joe’s
When it comes to grocery stores, there’s nothing quite like Trader Joe’s, which has amassed a cult following across America. Every time I walk into the store, my eyes light up with the colourful interiors, handwritten notices, quirky stories behind the foods, genuine interest of the staff, most dressed in outlandish styles, and their eagerness to help. I always emerge with a smile.
Joe Coulombe was the original Trader Joe, and having started out as Pronto Market convenience stores in 1958, created his own stores. Joe did things differently, and his stores reflected his love of Hawaiian beach culture with walls decked with cedar planks and staff dressed in cool Hawaiian shirts. Most importantly, he started putting innovative, hard-to-find, great-tasting foods in the “Trader Joe’s” name.
Value mattered to Joe. And the premium, exotic specialities he brought together were complimented by his low-priced own-label ranges which combined quality and quirkiness.
In 1979 Joe sold his brand to Theo Albrecht, better known for his low priced Aldi food stores in Europe. Aldi and Joe both believed in keeping things simple. No discounts, points cards, or members clubs. With a limited range the stores drive a better supply deal in return for bigger volumes, and can be more responsive to market trends.
Storytelling is everywhere at Trader Joe’s, from the hand-written signage and rustic displays, to the free coffee and sampling, the radio ads and chatty check-out dudes.
Whilst most competitors focus on automation and speed, this store is real and human, worth coming just to chill out. Even if you never get to visit a store, sign up to the Fearless Flyer online. With off-beat stories and cartoon humour, unusual recipes and showcased products, it’s an intriguing read.
Rise of the superhumans
The world often seems to be working against humanity. We build walls across the borders of America, fence people in who seek to migrate in search of a better life to Europe, apply deep surveillance policies in China, prefer to be an isolated island than a connected continent in UK, automate our factories and workplaces for speed and efficiency, prefer to date online rather than in reality, and to chat with social media friends rather than local communities.
At work, we are told that machines, from AI to robotics, will affect at least 30% of the current activities of at least 70% of job roles. It is the most repetitive tasks that are likely to be automated, robots on production lines, chatbots instead of call centres. Knowledge-based jobs from accountants to lawyers, air traffic controllers to investment bankers are likely to be some of the most disrupted.
When Elon Musk declared that “in the future robots will be able to do everything better than us, I mean all of us”, few experts disagreed. However, more recently he has shared a more thoughtful view, saying that “automation is not the future, human augmentation is.”
Augmented humanity be a key driver of the future work, enhancing what we can do:
Assisted humanity: The interface between people and machines is evolving rapidly from keyboard to voice, to eyes and brains. Digital assistants like Alexa and Siri are already common on our phones and in our homes, and will increasingly navigate us through unattended store. Everyone at work will have their own assistant.
Intelligent humanity: As interfaces change, machines learn more about our thought processes and behaviours, using algorithms to predict what we need and to enhance our knowledge. They will help us to solve complex problems, consider more options and risks, and to make smarter decisions.
Connected humanity: Collaborative working becomes easier and continuous whether we are together or apart, distributed working at home or around the world is no impediment to working together, as knowledge flows seamlessly, and individual tasks are joined up intelligently.
Virtual reality tools like Google Glass augment how we work, for example engineers being able to read instruction guides through the lens of their eyewear whilst simultaneously working on machines, or surgeons being able to operate whilst also getting realtime diagnostic data on the patient’s organs and vital statistics
At the same time this augmentation can be physical too. In Odense, at the SDU’s Athletics Exploratorium, I came across engineers simulating the use of exoskeletons to help dockyard workers carry loads which would have previously required cranes, craftsmen to have tools connected to their bodies.
Technology won’t replace us, but it could make us “superhuman”.
The future of work
By 2025 the majority of workers will be freelance individuals working around the world, independent of distance or background. They will apply their human, emotional, and creative skills to solve ever-more complex problems. They have the hunger to keep learning throughout their lives, the agility to keep adapting and updating their skills, and the open-mindedness to see things differently.
Modern and high-tech working environments are enhanced by a community feeling with shared facilities and resources. Many of the workers are not even employed by the companies, instead they are happier to remain freelance “gig-workers” working on projects that require specialist inputs. New ideas, new skills, new innovations and new opportunities swirl around in the creative atmosphere, and new partnerships often emerge out of the fusion. This is the new world of work. No jobs for life. Few permanent roles. Fluid job descriptions. Multiple jobs at the same time. And companies working together.
Some of the jobs of the future will be highly technical, whilst others will be much more human. In exploring the jobs of the future, Ben Pring from Cognizant explores 4Es to consider the skills required:
Eternal skills: Some human skills have existed since our very beginning. No matter how brilliant our technologies become, these human skills, along with many others, will be of value through eternity.
Enduring skills: The ability to sell has always been important. Other such enduring abilities – being empathetic, trusting, helping, imagining, creating, striving – will always be needed. Such skills will be central to jobs of the future.
Emerging skills: New skills for the future relate to the complexity, density and speed of work. The skill to use a 315mb Excel spreadsheet, or to navigate a drone virtual cockpit. These will enhance our ability to utilise new machines.
Eroding skills: Many skills that used to be special are now normal, to manage a social media platform, to product a fantastic presentation, whilst others are redundant like photocopying or replaced like data entry.
However the World Economic Forum suggests that more jobs will be created than lost, 133 million created and 75 million lost over the 5 years to 2025, as we see a huge evolution in the workplace of what people do, as well as how they do it. Top emerging jobs will include:
Data analysts and scientists
AI and machine learning specialists
Software and application developers
Sales and marketing professionals
Digital transformations specialists
Beyond technology, data and AI, many new roles will also emerge in the broader aspects of engineering and sustainable development. The growth in elderly will drive a boom in care work, and many more creative roles will emerge through relentless innovation and more human pursuits, like sport and entertainment.
Completely new jobs in specific industries will emerge such as
Flying car developers
Virtual identity defenders
Tidewater architects
Smart home designers
Joy adjutants
Analysis by BCG in 2020 shoes that 95% of most at risk workers could find good quality, higher paid jobs, if they are prepared to make the transition. This shift also offers the opportunity to close the wage gap, with 74% of women and 53% of men likely to find higher paid roles. It suggests that around 70% of those affected will need to make a significant shift in job, requiring a huge skills revolution.
At the same time, it is not just about refitting people for new jobs. The “dandelion principle”, embraced by organisations like SAP, starts by hiring great people with a diversity of backgrounds and skills to create a richer talent base. It then seeks to build jobs around people, rather than people around jobs, in a more symbiotic way.
More human, more creative, more female
As machines take on our more physical skills, the opportunity is for people to be liberated from the drudgery of repetitive tasks to add more human, creative and emotional value. Imagination will drive progress, whilst machines sustain efficiency.
Human skills matter not only within the workplace, but also in engaging with consumers. In a world of automated interfaces, brands will differentiate on their ability to be more intuitive, empathic and caring. The roles of people, assistants in stores, nurses in hospitals, teachers in classrooms, will be to add-value with premium levels of service.
Creative skills are not only in demand in the areas of communication, marketing and innovation, but also in rethinking how organisations can better work, how business models can be transformed, and machines themselves deployed in better ways.
Typically these “softer” skills are what we could call more “female” attributes. Of course, that is to stereotype genders, but it certainly requires more empathy than apathy, intuition than evidence, influence than instruction, care than control. At the same time it requires men to adopt these behaviours too, and in general to embrace inequalities and diversity.
BCG’s 2020 research suggests that analytical and critical thinking skills will be crucial to the future of the work, alongside more emotional intelligence and social influence. Learning and creative capabilities will be the most significant growth areas for development in the coming years. They identified these priorities:
Analytical thinking and innovation
Active learning and learning strategies
Creativity, originality and initiative
Technology design and programming
Critical thinking and analysis
Complex problem-solving
Leadership and social influence
Emotional intelligence
Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
Systems analysis and evaluation.
Meta skills, rather than technical or specialist skills which we may have trained for or focused on in the past, will become more significant. These are the more enduring skills which allow us to evolve and adapt to relentless change. Sensemaking, learning to learn, coping with uncertainty and change.
Sometimes this will require us to unlearn first, to let go of old assumptions and prejudices, and open our minds to new possibilities and perspectives.
In “The 100 Year Life” Lynda Gratton recognises that as life expectancy moves beyond 100, most of us will work for longer, and transition more often, with around seven different phases in our career journeys – not just new jobs, but entirely new vocations.
“Technology advances are making tech more … human.”
From the blockchain, to the metaverse, to emotional AI, digital technologies are rapidly advancing at a time when enterprises face more pressure than ever to innovate to gain a competitive advantage. Human behaviours and intelligence are informing the design of new machines, and everything we knew about innovation and strategy is being turned upside down.
How will you apply these human-centric technologies to transform the future of your business? Radically Human, a new book by Paul Daugherty and James Wilson, offers business leaders an easy-to-understand breakdown of today’s most advanced human-inspired technologies and an actionable IDEAS framework that will help you approach innovation in a completely new way.
Their “radically human” approach seeks to turn assumptions about the basic building blocks of innovation upside down. Taken together, this upending of reigning assumptions about IDEAS – Intelligence, Data, Expertise, Architecture, Strategy – offers a new innovation framework for companies to chart a new course to the future, turbocharge revenue growth, and prepare to compete in a world where the human, and the humane, will be the means by which companies will succeed and the measure by which they will be judged.
They explore how industrial giants and startups alike are drawing on this IDEAS framework to differentiate themselves along four key dimensions: talent, trust, experiences, and sustainability. These four key areas will be critical for companies to compete successfully in the radically human future.
Over the past five years, three truths have emerged: all companies are now technology companies; companies have proved that they can wield technology to innovate and change with unprecedented speed; and in the human-technology nexus, the human is in the ascendant. This means as people’s skills, experiences, and, in some senses, humanity evolve in tune with new technologies, the technologies and their design will need to further adapt.
These truths, combined with a set of unprecedented global circumstances, have brought society to an inflection point–a once-in-a-generation opportunity to actively shape our future from the ground up. At this moment of truth for technology and for people, companies that fully embrace their newfound power to reimagine everything from their talent to data, architecture, and strategy will lead the way in business performance and to a future that works better for everyone.
Airbnb was on a roll.
Born out of the financial crisis of 2008 when three young guys decided to offer airbeds to rent on their apartment floor, with a bowl of breakfast cereal thrown in as added value, to become a serious alternative to the world’s sterile and standard hotel chains, it had come a long way.
It then started to get bolder ambitions. A brand reimagination, told a story that enabled people to “belong anywhere”, to immerse themselves in local neighbourhood cultures, to embrace the quirky eccentric nature of every home and its location, and then added a diverse range of brand extensions, from trips to luxury.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and Airbnb almost went bankrupt.
Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO says “2 years ago, our business dropped 80%, our IPO was put on hold, and some didn’t think we’d make it at all. As bookings were wiped out, Chesky was forced to make many of his close-knit employees redundant.
He famously wrote an incredibly human letter, incredibly offering to let everyone take their laptops with them, as they least he could do to help them.
Then he started to adjust to a locked-down world. Cookery courses, salsa dancing, and many more entertaining yet practical types of content became popular as Airbnb became a place where people could learn and live anywhere, meaning locked in their own homes, yet connected online.
It kept some employees and a hardcore of loyal customers engaged , but struggled financially.
Yet as travel restrictions were lifted, Airbnb quickly saw a new boom. Staycationing, or the trend to vacation close to home, meant many people searched out an independent place to rent. And many others were all too happy to rent out spare bedrooms or homes, to make up for lost earnings.
So how did Airbnb turn things around? Chesky picks up the reinvention:
First, we simplified our business. We got back to our roots, prioritizing the everyday people who host their homes and offer experiences
We cut the vast majority of our projects, shuttered our business units, and made the painful decision to do a layoff
We significantly improved our cost structure, decreasing our cost of revenue (merchant fees and servers), and tightly managed our fixed costs
Next, we changed our approach to marketing. When travel stopped, we paused all performance marketing and shifted our focus to PR (there have been 1M+ stories written about Airbnb since then)
By 2021, we started investing in brand marketing again, but reduced our overall marketing spend from 34% of our revenue in 2019 to 20% in 2021
Soon, people weren’t just traveling on Airbnb, they were living on Airbnb.
And what has changed since the pandemic? Chesky says:
In 2021, around 20% of our nights booked were for stays of a month or longer, and nearly 50% for a week or longer.
These trends continue to this day. And now, urban and cross-border travel, which were the majority of our business before the pandemic, are back to 2019 levels
In 2021, we completely overhauled our product as the world became more flexible.
We made 150+ upgrades and improvements, including launching the “I’m Flexible” feature, which has been used more than 2 billion times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwEVkakitNc
How Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.
Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.
The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.
Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?
After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is an “enthralling detective story” that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.
The story is now captured by Walter Issacson in the new book “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race”. Fabulous, inspiring.
Doudna delivered her Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2020. She was introduced by Professor Claes Gustafsson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry:
Purpose defines what the business contributes to the world, or equally, why the world would be a lesser place if the business did not exist.
Purpose creates an enduring cause which the business is willing to fight for. For some this might be an urgent call to action, for others it might be a more personal inspiration. Saving then planet, or achieving your potential, with Nike, or seeking happiness, with Coca Cola.
Tesla exists to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”, Starbucks to “inspire the human spirit”, Dove to “help the next generation of women realise their potential”, Microsoft to “empower people to achieve more”, and Swarovski to “add sparkle to people’s everyday lives.”
Purpose creates a richer sense of meaning in your business, inspiring employees to raise their game, to transform and grow themselves and the organisation. It encourages a strategic focus, to rise above the distractions of today, to align on bigger goals and to innovate more radically. Productivity and performance typically follow.
We get it. But how do we make it happen, practically and profitably?
“Over the past 50 years, humanity has witnessed exponential developments that have resulted in the sort of change that previously took 500 years to achieve. Our progress is advancing at an accelerated rate. The cumulative effect of creativity, technology and social progress means that the next 50 years are likely to see transformations that surpass humankind’s achievements on every front” says a new report, The Global 50, exploring a future of radically new opportunities for business, societies and nations.
The report is published by the Dubai Future Foundation, which seeks to build on the UAE’s huge investment in future thinking, from Expo 2021 to its Museum of the Future, global collaborations on specific topics like hydrogen energy, and radical ventures like its Mars simulations. Having spent time working with the UAE’s PMO, and specifically their Ministry of Possibilities, it is a place without boundaries, which really does see ideas as open-sourced building blocks to a better global society. And beyond. Because the ideas, insights and opportunities in this report are relevant to everyone, everywhere.
Future 50 starts by reconsidering what we mean by success:
Growth … Today defined as the increase in the total real output of goods and services in an economy over time. Tomorrow could go beyond economic factors, for example by accounting for negative impacts, to create a measure of net-positive growth.
Prosperity … Today defined as a life of dignity and stability, free from the threats of poverty or harm, with access to decent employment opportunities and services such as education and healthcare. Tomorrow may encompass the same factors but set the bar higher: societies seen as prosperous will offer easy access to highly personalised education and healthcare services and widely varied means to earn a living, whether through employment, entrepreneurship or creativity. People will have more life choices and a more supportive environment in which to make them.
Wellbeing … Today defined as a good state of mental and physical health and feelings of life satisfaction. Tomorrow, it could be more about feelings of self- realisation as advances in medicine and technology lead to a greater ability to address mental and physical health issues. Positive social interactions and a sense of belonging conducive to self-esteem may take on greater weight in well-being, placing new demands and expectations on support from the state and society.
A new world of opportunity
This is an era of quantum shifts – rapid, sudden, and radical changes that create a range of possible scenarios for the future. As a quantum physicist myself, I recognise quantum theory as an abrupt transition from one energy state to another by atomic and sub- atomic particles. Here, it describes the rapid, disruptive and dramatic changes that we are starting to see in technology, business, government, medicine, culture and other areas.
5 major categories of opportunity emerge:
Nature Restored … Minimise environmental risks, harness nature’s capacity to restore itself or have a positive impact on crucial environmental ecosystems and habitats, creating a more stable, healthier planet for all.
Societies Empowered … Empower societies by offering solutions to humanity’s most complex and universal needs, optimising systems they rely on, safeguarding risks that could make societies more fragile in the face of crises and extending individual and collective potential for growth and development.
Health Reimagined … Redefine mental and physical health, support longer lives, drawing on both science, technology and nature towards better health and new ways to personalise access for individuals and communities everywhere.
Systems Optimised … Improve and build more effective and resilient systems underpinning advancements to services and solutions at various levels of business, government and society.
Transformational … The power to radically change ways of life by replacing the models that countries, communities and individuals live by. These new models enable individuals and communities to innovate and improve and aid the transformation of humanity to new digital and non-digital realities.
These 50 opportunities are representations of 10 broader megatrends:
Materials revolution: Researchers are studying nature to find inspiration for synthetic biological materials with novel physical properties that can be made in a laboratory. Over the next few decades, technological advances in materials science could result in wide-ranging applications to enhance sustainability, durability and efficiency. Supply chains may be re-engineered as individuals become producers in a regenerative or self- sufficient economy.
Devaluation of data: Ubiquitous real-time data is increasingly challenging the viability of business models based on asymmetric information. As more data becomes open, competition shifts from the question of who has the best data to that of who can best analyse the data that is available to everyone. New kinds of data – such as open-source DNA of many living organisms, brain mapping and microbiome analysis – can provide platforms for innovation in areas such as disease prevention and treatment.
Increasing technological and biological vulnerabilities: The more data becomes open, and the more interconnected and intelligent systems become, the more vulnerable a range of critical infrastructure and services will be – from finance to supply chains to potentially hackable DNA-based personalised medicine. Complexity could grow faster than the capacity to mitigate risks of system failure and cyberattacks. Quantum-proofing the internet will require new solutions and may be very complex.
Pushing the boundaries on energy: New solutions for electricity generation and storage, some not involving batteries or heat, are set to enable new models of energy distribution when combined with smart grids and superconductors. Examples include facilitating peer-to-peer electricity sharing across buildings and bringing cheap and consistent power to remote communities without the need for generators, allowing them to develop rapidly. Fusion could make energy limitless and bring immense benefits worldwide.
Management of ecosystems: Environmental impacts are seen less in terms of specific processes and more in terms of ecosystems. Ecosystem services are valued more highly with a greater understanding of their role in innovation and climate change mitigation and the connections between the biological world, humans and the digital world. More accurately assessing the value to humanity of the natural habitats of different countries could drive the emergence of new models to invest in ecosystem services. Community- and building-level ecosystems can become regenerative micro-economies that need to be served differently by governments and utilities.
Borderless world: Health, education and other services increasingly cross borders, pointing to a digital future with minimal transfer of physical goods. There is a growing need to clarify jurisdictions for cross-border transactions and set up international dispute resolution mechanisms that can resolve issues for everyone, wherever they are in the world.
Digital Realities, living in immersive virtual and digital spaces: Digital platforms evolve into digital realities beyond digital twins. Brain– computer interfaces could lead to a new symbiosis between the human and virtual worlds, allowing people to touch, smell, feel, see and hear surroundings in which they are not physically present. This would enable many aspects of life to be replicated in virtual spaces, including work and legal systems. It would also raise policy questions, such as how physical- world legalities and ethics apply in virtual spaces.
Living with autonomous robots: Humans may come to trust robots more than other humans because they act predictably, ensure confidentiality and make better decisions. But robots also pose ethical questions. How
far should they be granted rights? When should they be made available, and for whom? A sharing economy could involve robots that create opportunities to aid greater growth, prosperity and even well-being.
Repurposing human purpose: Advanced artificial intelligence can open new ways to realise human potential and reconfigure our purpose in the future. Intelligent, connected systems are enabling more personalised access to goods and services within people’s homes. Mental health conditions may be remedied by brain–computer interfaces and real-time testing and monitoring. People will seek income in different ways in future, with the economy set to revolve more around creative problem- solving – for example, there is potential for people to initiate inventions and solutions and own part of the intellectual property. Throughout history, technological shifts have led to new kinds of occupations emerging, suggesting that fears about job displacement can be alleviated if we know how to mentor people to operate in a more efficient world.
Advanced health and nutrition: Biofoundries that harness biological processes to produce sustainable products, including novel agritech and foods, have the potential to improve individual and collective outcomes while reducing environmental stresses. Personalised metabolic and genetic nutritional profiles can enable huge advances in addressing a range of physical and mental conditions, boosting longevity, productivity and well-being. Food and nutrition may become more regenerative, health diagnoses instantaneous and treatment more available either in people’s homes or through nutrition and robots for therapy. More accessible gene editing and gene therapy can, with appropriate regulations, bring many benefits.
Fast Companyhas been my go-to source of business inspiration for the last 25 years.
Back in the late 1990s every youthful business person was flocking to launch a start-up, to harness the power of the new technologies – the internet – to throw aside the conventions and limitations of physical organisations, in search of eyeballs, freedom, and a better future. I was one of them, launching a knowledge-based business platform called Zixio with a colleague, a spin off from our management consulting firm. We raced around the world in search of partners and investments. Energised and excited by the ability to launch, reach and scale rapidly. We called it the “dotcom” boom.
Fast Company, launched in 1995 by two former HBR editors, became the digital business bible of the time.
Of course many of those companies failed, and the financial crash just after the turn of the millennium had much to do with the lack of strategic thinking and business models, which would eventually drive profitability and real value creation. Others evolved into the giants of business we know today – Facemash became Facebook and most recently Meta Platforms, podcasting platform Odeo became Twitter, and Google started out as Backrub. They were mavericks – they broke the rules, they were inspired by the outliers, they searched for the next trends. Which is exactly what Fast Company has always sought to celebrate.
The best thing about Fast Company is its annual ranking of the world’s Most Innovative Companies (MIC).
Unlike other rankings by the likes of BCG and Forbes, who base their “innovativeness” rankings largely on R&D spend, Fast Company is much more about ideas into action. And while, ultimately innovation is all about turning ideas into practical value – future revenues, profits and value creation – then it is great to celebrate the best ideas that are shaping markets and minds. Not all of FC’s MIC will be a long-term success, but their ideas evolve, connect and drive futures. This is why the stories of the top 50 (and the top 10 in many diverse categories) are well worth a read.
This year’s Fast Company MIC 2022rankings are just out, with a clear focus on sustainable innovation, so here’s a taste of some of the highlights:
#1 Stripe
Payments that enable carbon-removal … Stripe, the online payments business founded by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, launched Stripe Climate to enable its business customers to participate in its strategy to fund innovative carbon-removal technology by contributing a percentage of their digital sales that move through Stripe’s software.
#2 Solugen
Turning sugar into industrial chemicals, without carbon emissions … Solugen, described as the first carbon negative molecule factory that can scale to meet the world’s needs, has developed a process of turning corn syrup into industrial chemicals using enzymes and metal catalysis—removing oil, coal, and natural gas from the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PjbXfD1PFc
#3 Twelve
Transforming pollution into plastics … Twelve is a chemical technology company based in Berkeley, California. They develop technology to convert CO2 into profitable chemicals, such as plastics and transportation fuel … Their carbon-transformation process uses a metal catalyst and renewable energy to break CO2 and water molecules into smaller atomic bits, and then re-forms them into new chemicals that can be used in manufacturing.
#4 BlocPower
Changing the way we power our homes … BlocPower, based in Brooklyn NY and founded in 2014, provides heat pump systems for no upfront cost, that deliver precise, room-by-room temperature control, built-in air filtration – and even more significantly, BlocPower has focused its efforts on low and middle-income communities.
#5 Climate Trace
The emissions data to transform the way we live … 59 trillion bytes of data from more than 300 satellites and 11,000 sensors are the inputs for Climate Trace, a coalition formed in 2020, aimed at updating and maintaining greenhouse gas emissions estimates to give countries the insights they need to direct climate mitigation efforts more effectively
#6 Watershed
Get to zero carbon, faster … that’s the proposition which Watershed makes to companies like Apple, Shopify, and Warby Parker – helping them to accelerate their own sustainability strategies, to assess all their emissions, develop a reduction strategy, and connect to carbon-removal solutions. It also has Al Gore and Mark Carney on board.
#7 Doconomy
Calculating the cost of our lifestyles … the Swedish environmental impact technology firm, launched by Mathias Wikström in 2018, quantifies environmental impact with such tools as its Lifestyle Calculator. Users complete a detailed survey, and Doconomy estimates an individual’s annual emissions in categories such as transport, home, shopping, and diet.
#8 Microsoft
Humanizing how we work … using a 30,000-person Future Work survey, anonymised data from Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn stats. and brain research conducted in its Human Factors Lab, to create tools for the future of work. Teams alone had almost 250 million monthly active users—no company is in a better position to help take the pain out of productivity.
#9 SpaceX
Building a rocket ship for everyone … In 2005, Elon Musk laughed at the idea that rockets had to be expensive to be reliable. Instead, they could be the Honda Civics of the sky, he said. Last year, SpaceX completed a record 31 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket, including its launch of the first all-civilian crew into orbit at a cost of $55 million per seat.
#10 Canva
Everyone can be a designer … Australian millennial Melanie Perkins and her team created a simple design studio that can be used by anyone. Edit text, an image, a background, an animation with a simple tap. Its easy-to-use, templated design platform allows people to create business cards, birthday invitations, social media ads, sales presentations and more.
Some of the most interesting sector rankings include
Most Innovative Companies inFood 2022… Jot ultra-coffee, 20 times stronger than normal, to Oishii super-premium strawberries … Here’s more about Oishii’s Hiroki Koga, and how he brought his luxurious Omakase Berry from Japan to New York, and now using vertical farming techniques, produces them, at $50 for 8 berries:
Most Innovative Companies inRetail 2022 … Faire to Food52, GlossGenius, and StitchFix harnessing the power of data, direct to consumers in a box … Here’s more about Rick Martinez’ Food52, the online food community, and a media platform that inspires you with exotic recipes, then sells you frying pans and espresso machines:
Most Innovative Companies inMedia 2022 … Hybe to Magnolia Networks, Spotify and Warner Media, engaging new audiences with new business models … Here’s a bit more from Warner Media – with brands like CNN to HBO, TNT to WB – currently in the midst of a $43 acquisition by Discovery from former parent AT&T:
Most Innovative Companies in Health 2022 … Last year’s rankings were dominated by Biotech and Moderna’s mRNA Covid vaccinations. This year Brightline, Illumina and Walgreens all star, but also GSK with a new vaccine to combat malaria … Here’s more about Illumina, and genetic sequencing that is rapidly reshaping the future of healthcare:
Most Innovative Companies in Finance 2022 … Ramp, Goodleap and Forter lead the rankings – and also Public and Promise in personal finance, just two companies helping people take control of their money and wealth … In a world of fintech, its not just about digitalising your bank, but more fundamentally rethinking why we need banks:
Most Innovative Companies in Latin America 2022 … dLocal and iFood join the latin greats like Mercado Libre, Rappi and Nubank in a region that is often underestimated for its innovativeness … Here’s more from Rappi’s cofounder Sebastian Mejia, creator of Colombia’s superapp, thinking differently about the whole structure of business :
If that’s not enough inspiration, you might also be interested in some more of the fabulous business stories that I explored while researching and writing my most recent books … I’ve profiled over 100 business leaders, and 100 most inspiring companies, largely through one to one interviews. You can dip into them here:
100 Leaders … from Anne Wojcicki to Bernard Arnault, Cristina Junqueira to Ben Francis, Zhang Ruimin to Zhang Yimin, and many more.
100 Companies … from %Arabica to 1Atelier, 77 Diamonds to A Boring Life, Aerofarms to Alibaba, Babylon and and more.
Leadership Letters … inspiring letters including Satya Nadella’s first day as CEO, Richard Branson to his grandchildren, and Jack Ma stepping down
Leadership Videos … inspiring videos of great leaders, like Jeff Bezos, Emily Weiss, Tan Le, Tobi Lutke, and Warren Buffett
And I bring all of these insights and ideas together in a wide range of keynotes and workshops, helping you to gain new inspiration, and drive practical innovation and growth in your own business.
Contact me for more info at peterfisk@peterfisk.com
The curse of plastic is everywhere – in our overflowing bins, along beaches, and in trees. Retailers across the world have recognised the problem, charging for plastic bags in some countries, making plastics a criminal offence in others. Humans have produced more than 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s, according to the UN, most of which ends up in landfills and could take centuries to decompose.
Ecovative, believes it can massively help the world reduce its plastic waste by using mycelium, created from the root-like structure of mushrooms.
The New York biotech company grows mycelium into specific shapes and sizes by taking organic plant waste and inoculating it with mycelium. After the mycelium grows through and around the agricultural materials, it binds them together, providing a natural alternative to packaging materials made out styrofoam. The process takes around a week with minimal water and electricity consumed to make the parts.
Beyond packaging materials to replace plastics, Ecovative sees application in fashion with vegan leather, plant-based meats, construction where it is strong and has excellent insulating properties, and in healthcare to build new organs. At the end of the material’s useful life, you can break it up and you can put it in your own garden. A nutrient not a pollutant.
“My dream is to one day grow a lung and seed it with lung cells and use the mycelium to create the capillary network and use the human cells to create the actual lung,” says founder Eben Bayer.
Getting more from less
Andrew McAfee’s book “More from Less” tells the story of an unexpected change in our relationship with our planet. “Throughout the Industrial Age increases in human population and prosperity came at the expense of the earth, that pattern no longer holds in most of the world. Instead, we’re now able to improve the human condition while also treading more lightly on the world: consuming fewer resources, using less agricultural land, reducing pollution, bringing back species we’d pushed to the brink of extinction”.
He makes the counter-intuitive argument that two of the most important forces responsible for the change are capitalism and technological progress. In the past this combination caused us to take more and more from the planet over time. Now, it’s letting us get more from less. So what changed? Essentially, we invented the computer, the network, and a host of other digital tools that let us swap atoms for bits. Think, for example, of how many different devices and media have vanished into the smartphone. Quite literally, these inventions have changed the world.
Evidence from the USA shows that even though population and prosperity continued to increase steadily, resource consumption did not. Instead, it started to decline. The country now generally uses less metal, fertilizer, water, paper and timber, and energy year after year, even output grows. This phenomenon is known as dematerialization of the economy, and it’s bringing us into what McAfee calls a “second enlightenment”.
Air and water pollution have also decreased greatly, and many threatened species have seen their numbers rebound. Even greenhouse gas emissions have declined substantially in recent years. We are now getting more from less, most advanced nations are now post-peak in resource use and other exploitations of the environment.
Circular design
A decade ago, former long-distance yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur launched foundation to promote a “circular economy.” This sought to create a new economic model for businesses, which eliminated waste and replenished natural resources. Using a closed loop system, it encouraged reuse, sharing, repair and recycling as ways in which an organisational ultimately has a “zero impact” on its world.
Nike sees sustainable innovation as a design challenge – not just of its shoes and clothing, but of its entire business ecosystem – from the dyes to colour its fabrics to the production systems of its shoes, and the fair wage of workers in its factories.
John Hoke, Nike’s Chief Design Officer says “One of the most powerful things design can do for Nike, athletes and, frankly, the world, is play a role in creating a better future by making better choices that holistically and thoughtfully think through the complete design.
“By considering everything around the design solution – how we source, how we make, how the product is used, how it’s returned, how it’s ultimately reimagined. As designers, we are wired to be problem solvers. We get to think about designing ideas that have the highest performance impact possible. While simultaneously having the lowest environmental footprint or impact.”
Nike recently partnered with many other companies and academics to create “10 Principles of Circular Design” as a process to rethink products, how they are made and sold:
Materials: Selecting low impact materials that use pre and post-consumer recycled feedstock.
Cyclability: Designing with the end in mind. Thinking through how a product will be recycled at the end of the use phase.
Waste Avoidance: Minimizing or elimination waste in the product-creation process, and beyond.
Disassembly: Products that can easily be taken apart and recognizing the value of each component.
Green Chemistry: Chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous substances.
Refurbishment: Prolong the use of a product through repair of component parts or materials
Versatility: Products that easily adapt to growth, style, trend, gender, activity and purpose
Durability: Products made strongly by construction details, method of make and durable material choices
Circular Packaging: Packaging that is purposeful and made of materials that can be repurposed, recycled or biodegradable
New Models: Establishing new service and business models to extend the product life cycle.
Over the years, Nike’s view to solving problems that embraces sustainability has broadened dramatically, not just to reduce waste but to improve products. One of the most significant was the development of “Flyknit” which ended the process of cutting pieces of fabric for shoe uppers, and instead knitting them to the perfect shape. This massive improved the fit and performance of the shoe for consumers too. Recently they developed “Flyleather” which takes recycled natural leather fibres, and turns it into high performance leather, with all the qualities of old, plus more.
Net positive impact
A decade ago, former long-distance yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur launched foundation to promote a “circular economy.” This sought to create a new economic model for businesses, which eliminated waste and replenished natural resources. Using a closed loop system, it encouraged reuse, sharing, repair and recycling as ways in which an organisational ultimately has a “zero impact” on its world.
Many companies embraced the challenge. Of the many impacts of industrialisation, carbon emissions have perhaps been one of the most damaging. “Offsetting” became a popular action, companies paying to plant new trees which capture the carbon, as a way to neutralise their impact, or reduce their guilt, of carbon-emitting factories and travel.
Ant Financial, for example, created a fantastic loyalty program for its Chinese consumers, enabling them to collect offset points for any kinds of purchases they made, equivalent to their environmental impact. The points allowed people to plant trees in “Ant Forest”, supported by a gamified app which shows you how your tree grows, and the huge forest across Chinese wasteland is thriving.
However creating zero impact seems like only a start. Some organisations, most recently Microsoft, have set a target for “negative carbon” by which they capture more carbon than is emitted. Datacentres, for example, use huge amounts of energy, so by building solar and wind farms, they can power their facilities, and contribute renewable energy to local communities, reducing their demand for traditional fuels.
LanzaTech, based in Chicago, is looking beyond trees to capture carbon. The biotech start-up has developed a way to turn emissions into ethanol, a renewable fuel. Instead of letting carbon emissions bellow out of factory, it is piped into a bioreactor and fermented, like in beer making, into ethanol. It uses a natural gas-eating bacteria developed specifically for fermentation. One steel mill can recyle enough carbon to create 9 million gallons of ethanol, which was then demonstrated by Virgin Atlantic as an effective aircraft fuel. Similar initiatives include Braskem turning city waste into biofuels in Brazil.
We are now at the point where businesses are not simply creating zero waste, but can create a “net positive impact”.
The impacts can be environmental, but also social. A business can give more to the world, in its total “balance sheets” of resources and effects, than it takes. It can do this most specifically, not by just thinking of creating more efficient processes, which seek to reduce waste in a similar way to reducing costs, but by increasing the upside. Creating products and services that embrace a sustainable benefit, and through the purchase and application by millions of customers, can multiply the positive impact many times.
Additionally, by thinking at an ecosystem, to work with the many different partners involved the creation and distribution of their solutions, then they have more opportunities to ensure that the net impact is zero, or positive, and again more ways to multiply this impact.
Imagine if anything could be made on demand – to order, in seconds, at home?
Clothing. Maybe you will subscribe to the Prada design platform, which gives you access to thousands of clothing designs. Click to select the one you like, tweak it a little to add some personal flair, and then press print. In 30 minutes you’re trying it on. All for a flat subscription of $100 per month.
Engineering. You need a spare part for a machine. Ordering it from Taiwan could take 30 days. Instead you look up the IP code, and can immediately print one out in your factory. In minutes. Forget global supply chain. Or standardised parts. You can make anything you want.
Healthcare. A heart transplant patient lives on the edge. Waiting for the phone call to say that somewhere, a donated organ has become available that meets your specific blood type and other needs. Instead we can just print one out, using your personal genetic code. We could live for ever?
And it goes on. 10 years ago 3D printing was a gimmick, watching the liquid plastic merge and make a simple ball. 5 years ago Icon launched huge 3D printers that could construct a new home in 24 hours for $4000. 1 year ago Singularity Sushi gave us 3D printed sushi, specifically to match your DNA.
3D printing is ready to transform our world.
Manufacturing. Supply chains. Business models. What you eat, wear, make can be endlessly personalised, made to order, on demand, by subscription.
Who are the most innovative companies currently shaping the 3D printing revolution?
3D Systems
Over 30 years ago, 3D Systems brought the innovation of 3D printing to the manufacturing industry. Chuck Hull, CTO, pioneered stereolithography and obtained a patent for the technology in 1986. Today 3DS manufactures and sells 3D printers, 3D printing materials, 3D scanners, and offers a 3D printing services, to create anything imaginable. Each application-specific solution addresses a variety of advanced applications in healthcare and industrial markets such as medical and dental, aerospace and defence, automotive, and durable goods.
Carbon
Carbon is based in Redwood City, California, manufacturing and developing 3D printers utilising its Continuous Liquid Interface Production process, with its first commercial product being the Carbon M1 printer. Carbon’s digital manufacturing platform enables repeatable production of end-use parts with industrial grade materials and exceptional surface finish. Whether you’re making one or a million. In 2017, Adidas announced the first 3D printed midsole developed using Carbon technology.
FormLabs
Formlabs was founded by three MIT students who met while taking a class called “How to Make (almost) Anything”. They also drew on their experience with MIT’sCenter for Bits and AtomsFab Lab program, “We make the world’s best 3D printers so anyone can make anything.” One of the first companies to enable 3D printing for the mass market and is a leader in innovating with materials, including new ceramic and greyscale resins. These resins are capable of producing prints and have a wide range of applications across engineering, design, medicine and dental care.
Icon
Icon develops advanced construction technologies that advance humanity. Using proprietary 3D printing robotics, software and advanced materials, Icon seeks to transform the way home are built. In its early stages it linked up with NGO New Story, to provide fast replacement homes for those hit by natural disasters, and also to address homelessness.
Luyten
Australian 3D printing technology company established in 2020 seeking to make construction easier and more sustainable across industries. Project Meeka seeks to construct a 3D printer to build a base on the moon. The foldable 3D printer ‘Platypus Galacticus’ will use lunar regolith (a substance on the moon’s surface) to create the settlement, which could happen as early as 2030.
Mighty Buildings
Building sustainable 3D printed homes. Seeking to reimagine the building industry from factory to foundation, the construction uses award-winning Light Stone Material offering an energy efficient and near-zero waste solution, with 80% of the production process automated. “The future of cities will not only have cleaner transportation, but cleaner buildings too. Homes that don’t use steel or cement that are 50 per cent less carbon footprint,” says investor Vinod Khosla.
Organova
Founded in 2007, it specialises in 3D bioprinting, having internally developed the NovoGen Bioprinter to enable the automated fabrication of multicellular tissue. To date, its bioprinter technology is responsible for creating a range of tissues, including skeletal muscle, liver, eye, kidney and skin.
Stratasys
Created one of the first 3D printing technologies over 30 years ago. Stratasys’ automotive clients include Honda, Volvo and Ford.Working with the top aerospace, automotive, technology and medical players. One of its most ambitious clients is Boom, seeking to recreate the age of supersonic flight. How I would have loved to have 3D printing in the days of Concorde!
Upprinting Food
Founder Elzelinde van Doleweerd wants to reduce food waste through printing leftovers (bread, vegetables and fruits), which become new gourmet creations to be enjoyed. Her company collaborates with high-end restaurants to repurpose their waste in creative ways using extrusion technology. “Simply, a 3D printer is just like a big piping bag” she says, blending the ingredients together to create a puree, which is then printed, baked and dehydrated, giving it a crunchy texture.
In the summer of 2019, fires ravaged the Amazon rainforests, causing alarm around the world. For Brazil’s João Paulo Ferreira, CEO of Natura, one of the world’s largest cosmetics company with a passion for sustainability, it was a disaster. Natura is committed to working with 35 local communities in the Amazon region, including more than 4,300 families, to help develop products and sustainable business models that benefit the forest and its inhabitants.
Natura is also seeking to accelerate its growth, looking for new ways to grow across the world, helped by the acquisition of brands such as Australia’s Aesop luxury cosmetics, the UK’s Body Shop, and Avon, the network-marketing business with 6 million representatives across the world.
Ferreira’s growth model seeks to bring together three important shifts in the market – the consumer’s demand for more sustainable products, the drive for accessible luxury particularly in the wellness sector, and the shift to peer to peer communities and business models. On top of this his notion of growth is not simply the sales revenue, but the increasing positive impact for all its stakeholders, including his Amazonian partners, who desperately need his help to recover their livelihoods.
Finding the future first
William Gibson, the sci-fi author said, “the future is here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Much of what will create the future therefore is already in front of our ideas. Our challenge is to make sense of it, to see how it fits together, to imagine how it can be more.
Newness occurs in the margins not the mainstream. We need to look to the outliers, the early adopters and extreme users, for emergent behaviour in markets. We need to look to the smaller, specialist innovators for the new solutions. Finding newness is less about waiting for a completely new technology, such as quantum computing, more about connecting the dots of what is already here, then using imaginative fusions to understand how they will be shaped into a new reality for many.
As new ideas gradually catch on, they begin to spread more rapidly, a bit like how ice melts from the edges almost imperceptibly slowly, and then much more perceptibly faster. Sometimes they can seem cool to the geeks, but then get shunned by the mainstream, because they are not practical or desired. Geoffrey Moore calls this “the chasm”, which new ideas need to leap to reach most people.
How can you see the megatrends, and how they will affect your business and customers, before they arrive?
“Seeing around corners” by Rita McGrath focuses on the inflection points in our changing markets. If we think of market evolution as a series of “s-curves” then a market takes off slowly but then accelerates, where it inflects. Malcolm Gladwell termed it the tipping point. The inflection is typically caused by external factors, such as new capabilities or attitudes, economic or regulatory change.
The challenge is to be ready for these inflections. Indeed, much of future thinking is less about predicting with any certainty, but about being prepared for uncertainty. We can search for clues that an inflection is close or upon us. We can look to adjacent markets for parallel behaviours. Food trends tend to lead drinks trends, sportswear trends lead couture, gaming leads entertainment.
McGrath observes that inflection points don’t happen instantly. They take a long time. The original title for her book was taken from Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises”. One of the characters asks another: “Well, how did you go bankrupt?” And the response was: “Oh well, gradually and then suddenly.” Which is how inflection points feel. When they are upon you, they feel as though they’ve emerged from nowhere and they’re just disruptive and difficult. But if you really look at the roots of them, they’ve been coming on for a really long time.
Nike’s shift to direct to consumer channels has been evolving for some time, but now it has become the norm. Perhaps by watching start-ups who have created direct relationships with consumers, like Casper mattresses or Harry’s shaving products, Nike gained the confidence to switch away from traditional channels and create a better shopping experience of their own, both in their flagship stores and online. By using the consumer relationships built up through Nike+ fitness trackers and membership, the brand can have a one to one dialogue, offer personal incentives, and a truly individualised experience directly with consumers. Competitors don’t get a look in. Nike acquired new capabilities such as data analytics company Zodiac to support it, and Invertex to create Nike Fit, 3D remote scanning of shoes enabling consumers to ensure they get the perfect fit. $16bn of sales flowed through Nike’s DTC channels in 2019.
However too many leaders resist change. Too many leaders have grown to love their status quo. Stability brings more certainty and efficiency. Constant change requires more effort and turbulence. Carefully made plans need to be written, production lines adapted, new products and packaging developed, new talents recruited, and partners forged, new ads created.
As McGrath says, “Leaders turn a blind eye quite deliberately because it is just more convenient not to take in news that things might be changing.”
Seeing things differently
Airlines are one of the worst industries to work in. Every time an economic downturn comes around, their businesses are hit worse than most. I remember working for British Airways through economic downturns. Within days, bookings would have evaporated, and planes would be grounded. The problem was that they saw themselves as an operator of aircraft, and little more.
An alternative frame of thinking would be that they are in the business of connecting people. For travellers on vacation, they help them to explore the world, to meet up with family and friends. For business travellers, they are in the business of facilitating trade, finding new partners, reaching new markets, doing new deals. If they framed their business around the customer, and what they seek to achieve, there could be many alternative options to sustain their business, even in a downturn.
Similarly, Adrian Slywotzky, author of “How to Grow When Markets Don’t”, says that too many companies over the last decade have stagnated because they have forgotten how to grow. Whilst their businesses grew rapidly in their entrepreneurial years, they then become fixated on their existing products and services, framing themselves in these ways, and thereby in markets which have matured and stagnated. He says that most companies have relied on traditional “product-centred” strategies for growth.
“Reframing” therefore becomes an incredibly powerful way in which to see your opportunities differently. By redefining the boundaries of what market you are in, you immediately escape the limitations of the old thinking, you jump to uncontested spaces which are no longer fought over by the same competitors, and you potentially engage customers in new, more inspiring and valuable ways.
CVS famously reframed their pharmacy business into a health business. Whilst a pharmacy is seen as a slightly negative place, a store to go to when you are sick, in search of a specific product transaction, health is a more positive idea, where you might go more often for a wider range of wellness-based products and services, and even pay more for. In other cases, you might even find that you see a significant change in stock prices, as analysts apply different p/e ratios, for example in shifting from a communications to media business.
Whilst one way is to reframe your market, another is to understand what else is inside your business that could add value to customers and differentiate your proposition.
Chris Zook worked with Slywotzky on another book, “Unstoppable”, which encourages companies to understand what their “hidden assets” are and find ways to leverage them to generate new opportunities for profitable growth. Hidden assets include undervalued business platforms, unexploited customer assets, or underused capabilities.
The 12 sources of growth
Growth remains the overarching pursuit of a business, even when it embraces a more socially engaged economic model where value is shared more equally between all stakeholders. Growth creates a bigger “pie” which can be shared amongst everyone, and that growth can be driven in a way that is efficient and has more positive impact as it is created, not just as a result. Positive growth, if you like.
You could argue that Igor Ansoff still has the answer to growth. His “product/market expansion grid” from the 1950s explores the opportunities and risks of growth – a simple 2×2 matrix that explores new and existing markets, and new and existing products and services. The limitation of course, is that it encourages thinking based around products, and the existing frames of markets.
Finding growth is an increasingly creative and multi-dimensional process, that combines the ideas of searching for new opportunities based around changing attitudes and behaviours, new capabilities and aspirations, and creative ways to frame, connect and define them.
This gives us at least 12 sources to explore:
New audiences … reaching new customer segments, or those which have not been explicitly addressed in the past, through same or adapted products and propositions. Example: Nivea’s skincare for men.
New propositions … exploring the new or different needs and aspirations of customers, or new price points, such as line extensions, or a low end or luxury version. Example: Mini, Mini Cooper, Mini Clubman, Mini Countryman.
New channels … reaching underserved or inaccessible audiences, either with direct channels, or through new types of intermediaries. Example: Bolthouse Farms selling carrots as snacks through vending machines.
New geographies … taking the existing business to new geographies – new locations, cities, nations – in the same or adapted forms. Example: Hershey’s have five different chocolate formulae for different parts of the world.
New products … this is largely driven by new capabilities, that are embraced to better meet new and existing needs and aspirations, new varieties and formats, and new applications. Example: Innocent’s smoothies, juices, snacks, water.
New services … adding chargeable services, such as support to enhance the use of the product, or shifting from products to charging for access, like SaaS, software as a service. Example: Eataly’s cookery classes, beyond stores and restaurants.
New experiences … combining products and services of your own, and potentially partners, into a richer added-value experience for customers. Example: Airbnb Trips, adding flights, car rental and activities to accommodation.
New categories … creating new market spaces, that emerge from new needs, or fusions of existing needs, with distinctive products and services to address them. Example: Red Bull’s energy drinks.
New partners … collaborating with partners who enhance the offer, from affinity brands to competitors and complementors. Example: Clothing brand Supreme partnering with Louis Vuitton to enhance brand reputation.
New business models … developing new operational or commercial models for businesses – subscriptions, freemium, one for one, and more. Example: Microsoft 365 cloud-based subscription.
New acquisitions … enhancing your portfolio, your capabilities or reach by acquiring new businesses that complement your existing. Example: Facebook acquiring Instagram to reach people more actively and intimately.
New possibilities … developing entirely new markets based around novel capabilities and solutions which have no precedence. Example: Virgin Galactic developing its space tourism business.
Growth of course is easy if only measured by sales – any fool can discount a product. The challenge is to find sustainable, profitable growth. This list is not exhaustive, nor the approaches mutually exclusive. Many growth initiatives will use a combination of these approaches, and will focus as much on accelerating existing sources, as finding new. Growth accelerators range from new brands and propositions to exploiting network effects, such as social media and distribution platforms, that multiply reach.
