Is the success of Apple a result of thoughtful strategy or insightful innovation? Maybe both.

Certainly the biggest driver of growth has been prompted by looking into unmet needs, understanding how habits and usages had changed and tap into technology to help then.

How does strategy influences innovation? For me, blue ocean is often about creating new market spaces. As the world is today, most likely the unmet needs out there are more likely to be a result of dissatisfied consumers instead of new needs. Good strategy is exactly about defining the area of focus for the consumer understanding, and therefore setting the field for innovation to take place.

Who drives innovation?
Often companies that operate in industries like electronics, pharma or automobiles tend to believe that R&D is in control of innovation. These companies tend to place most effort in building a competitive business Model, and smaller R&D companies gravitate around them. But in fact, their race for latest findings often leads to cutting costs and streamlining prices, a non so sustainable strategy on the long run.
So the key challenge is to become more consumer centric.. but how?

It’s about reconstructing market realities, and making them work, by offering simple, easy and intuitive experiences where often the solutions put here were forcing consumers to compromise. Big and fast or small and slow? Apple just kept asking why… Why are consumers often forced to choose? Why doesn’t it work like it should? Why can’t we have the best products and services out there?

Prioritize what matters
By linking the insights about habits and usability preferences from consumers with a strategic vision of how trends can impact your market, offers powerful new market understanding, so-called blue ocean.