Breakthrough innovation:
looking for growth in emerging and new markets.
Looking outwards, entering into partnerships, developing new categories. Looking for innovations that fit the brand, but are new to your customers and organisation. Exploring a new market, doing new things, putting new irons in the fire. Breakthrough innovation is about daring to try and being prepared to fail on occasion and learn from mistakes.
This is where we work from trends and the company’s vision to conquer new markets. Horizon 2 is not about the now, but about tomorrow. It transcends the daily business from Horizon 1. On Horizon 2 (and 3) you have to organise your innovation process and team differently. This is why you need people who are further removed from your daily business. More and more, we help (and lead) these teams with our own approach: brand driven design thinking.
This is how The USP Company helps with HORIZON 2:
Wide Open Process.
You form a core team of 4 to 6 people. This team is connected to two of our Business Creatives. For the duration of 8-12 weeks the whole team completes a tried and tested Innovation process. Your core team ( as well as other employees) will be involved in this process. Tasks will be divided between The USP Company and the team. We go through all the steps: desk research, trend explorations, consumer insight sessions, ideation workshops, proposition feedback sessions with the target group. For this we work with various tools, such as the Value Proposition Canvas or the Business Model Canvas. Our Business Creatives autonomously delve into your organisation, brand, customers and competitors. They bring lots of out-of-the-box creativity to the process and supplement the team’s output with autonomously conceived innovations. So you have the best of both worlds.
Proposition Propellor
If you have a draft proposition on Horizon 2 that has to be finetuned our Business Creatives can help. Many new propositions originate from an internal assignment or a business insight. Sometimes because a new technique paves the way for something new or because a business opportunity arises. There is a sense of urgency, but often there is no good understanding as to whether the MVP will meet the customers’ needs for 100%. And what is Minimum Viable? Everything is still possible at this stage. Together we will make the right choices. We will help you with ideation, client research and name development. We will contribute Design Thinking and will not rest until we are convinced your new proposition will fly when introduced. This is how we help the team from Robeco fintuning Robeco One.
Five Day Innovation Sprint.
In case 12 weeks is too long, or the business issue has already been framed and you don’t feel that the business problem or opportunity will be handled adequately in house, you can opt for a shortcut. Form a small core team, including a decision maker. Select the Five Day Innovation Sprint with the USP Company. Together we will solve a complex problem within a week. The Sprint is a tried and tested method, developed by Google Ventures and tailored by us for proposition development. The USP Company distinguishes itself by from other organisations. We don’t just facilitate the Five Day Sprint, but thanks to the involvement of two business creatives, we also ensure a healthy dose of out-of-the-box thinking.
Qualitative Research +
Are you busy working on an innovation that you want to test. Or a new brand positioning? The USP Company helps organise qualitative research, inhouse, in the target group’s home (Inhomes) or at work. The plus of this research is in the preparation, the method and the added creativity, before and after research. We go beyond what a standard research agency does. Testing innovations is never standard. It is an exciting and vulnerable process. Especially when you are testing propositions on Horizon 2 & Horizon 3. Our Business Creatives conduct the research themselves. We help make the stimuli. Ideas become tangible through visualisation, ux design and effective naming. We develop a clever interview guide. And our creatives help you to strengthen your proposition following the research (on the basis of the feedback). This is how we helped the Squla Team to finetune their brand positioning.
Creative Innolab Support
Innovation labs that are having trouble finding zero gravity thinkers, the crazy ones, in short, Business Creatives with a proven track record, can team up with The USP Company. We offer various subscriptions for innovation labs, so that they can make the best use of our Business Creatives for ideation. Because we believe in our added value for innovation labs we off a three day trial. No cure, no pay.
Learn more?
Make an appointment with Willem van Harrewijen
+316 – 42 21 89 04
Or contact us
