D3 Define – Analysis and Strategy

D3 Define: Analysis and Strategy aims on identifying innovation principles which are aligned with the corporate strategy and also with customer and market requirements.

We recommend analyzing the current situation pragmatic but thoroughly before developing principles to lead the innovation process or even an innovation strategy. For doing so we look on four areas at minimum: the customers and their touch points to you, the business models and the innovation strategy: – “Four E”:

Customers and the way they use the product or service (the user experience) are often neglected during this phase. However, we believe it is most important to understand this well to comprehend the value generated. This encompasses the kind of interaction between you and your customers at all major touch points.

Mostly it is quite clear that the product portfolio and the business models used have to be understood in order to learn from your experience. A lot of customers underestimate the importance of the innovation strategy by far.

Should you continue to improve existing products and services or rather invest in new approaches? Should a product or a service be build, which can be used as a basis for further development or is it important not to be hindered by such design considerations? As to our experience the answers to this are not universally valid but depend on the situation.

We use a hypothesis driven approach to assess complex matters. This allows us to reduce the amount of data collection substantially to those supporting data required. Often the status quo is more complex than assumed, since a lot of sectors currently undergo dramatic chances.

For instance, Chris Andersen published in 2004 his article „The Long Tail” in Wired.com and later in a book with the same name to highlight the fundamental changes in the music industry: „You can find everything out there on the Long Tail. [...] Sure, there is also a lot of crap. But there’s a lot of crap hiding between the radio tracks on hit albums, too. People have to skip over it on CDs, but they can more easily avoid it online.”