Disruptive innovation in practice
New Markets Blog
Read more in Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't (McGraw-Hill, 2011)
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The first impulse of companies on the current stock market roller coaster may be to fasten their seatbelts and sit very tight. But with record amounts of cash on their books, many firms have been sitting tight for some time, and their prospects for organic growth have shrivelled. There are five things companies can do to nuture growth even when cash is dear and markets are volatile. Read more in my post at Harvard Business Review.
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Walgreens, the American drugstore giant, is a 110-year-old institution in a very well-established industry. But that hasn't stopped it from upending the competitive game by using under-exploited assets to create new markets. In doing so, it has built defenses around profitable core businesses while generating high-potential sources of growth. Read more in my Financial Times article (subscription required).
Stephen Wunker is the Managing Director of New Markets Advisors and Author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't.
Google is trying to ride new waves of growth to meet investor expectations. Unfortunately, as it chases this goal it is falling into a trap that ensnares many companies eager for new revenue. It is pushing new efforts to get too big too fast, thereby cramming them into existing market spaces rather than forging fundamentally new markets. Counter-intuitively, the surest route to big growth can be through first targeting small markets. Read more in my post at Forbes.
Stephen Wunker is the Managing Director of New Markets Advisors and Author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't
While this week's budget deal may pressage the repeal of subsidies that support some new markets, such as in renewable energy, there are many other, inexpensive ways for public policy to support market creation. The interventions deal more with laying the plumbing of new markets than financing products' initial take-up. This is an apolitical role for government that would benefit from more attention. Read more in my post at Forbes.
Stephen Wunker is the Managing Director of New Markets Advisors and the Author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't.
As much as Apple seems to surge from strength to strength, it's had only middling success in emerging markets. The company has recently begun to target these new markets in a more concerted way, and rumours abound of a new, relatively inexpensive iPhone coming to support this strategy. Watch out. For all of Apple's attention to creating elegant technical systems, it will need to pay equal attention to crafting business systems essential for success in these environments. Read about the coming struggles in my post at Forbes.
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