Sustainable Growth:

Opportunity Approach

Discovering Opportunities

The Heart of the Opportunity-driven Business Development

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."  

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Purpose

Opportunity discovery is at the heart of the opportunity approach to business development. This needs to be a natural element in your company's range of activities.

Honing Your Competitive Edge

Discovering and taking advantage of opportunities that others don't see is a key to developing and honing your competitive edge, no matter what industry you're in or what your role is. Seeing and seizing opportunities are skills that can be applied universally, if you have the curiosity, commitment, and a framework.³

Optimistic Thinking

Changing your perspective is the key to finding success in seeming failure. "Optimistic thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover opportunities in problems."³ Due to optimistic positive thinking, problems will become merely challenging opportunities that you can turn to your advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate your creativity for finding better ways to live.

Learning Opportunities

A major American enterprise with a diverse group of huge businesses, GE is steeped in a learning culture and it is this fact that makes GE a unique company. As Jack Welch puts it: "What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."

Reframing and Turning Your Problems To Opportunities

Your perception of any problem depends on the position from where you perceive it.

• Step our of your shoes

• Discover opportunities: don't focus on the problem;... More

 Case in Point   Dell Inc.

"Our success is due, in part, to not just an ability but a willingness to look at things differently," writes Michael Dell³, the Founder & CEO of Dell Inc.. "I believe opportunity is part instinct and part immersion - in an industry, a subject, or an area of expertise. Dell is proof that people can learn to reorganize and take advantage of opportunities that others are convinced don't exist. You don't have to be a genius, or a visionary, or even a college graduate to think unconventionally. You just need a framework and a dream."

Experimentation: The Key to Discovery

Experimentation means trying something new and unproven – and acknowledging that you cannot reliably predict the outcome.

Discovering what works requires that you understand the casual links between inputs and outputs. When it comes to searching for cause-effect relationships, perhaps the most suitable model that emerges is the method of experimentation that allows the most efficient scientific progress, the scientific method as a model for discovery.¹... More

 Case in Point   Amazon.com

Amazon.com broke the rules of the book business by using the Internet rather than conventional distribution channels. The company was founded by Jeff Bezos, a computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University.  Bezos had moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D.E.Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. He didn’t know much about the Internet. But he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Not knowing much more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience.

The Art of Innovation: 9 Truths

By: Guy Kawasaki

• “Let a hundred flowers blossom.” I stole this from Chairman Mao. Innovators need to be flexible about how people use their products. Avon created Skin So Soft to soften skin, but when parents used it as an insect repellant, Avon went with the flow. Apple thought it created a spreadsheet/database/wordprocessing computer; but, come to find out, customers used it as a desktop publishing machine. The lesson is: Don't be proud. Let a hundred flowers blossom... More

Yin and Yang of Value Innovation

Happiness – It's All in Our Own Hands

When you encounter a problem, try to look for the good points. Everything has at least one good point. Even sickness has its positive side. You get some extra rest or have more time to spend with your family or you use the period of recuperation as an opportunity to turn to dharma... More

Top 10 Essential Requirements To Be A Great Strategic Thinker

Essential Element #4: You must have an extremely high level of awareness of what is happening around you and be open to absorbing all that you can. In any business, there are clues, often subtle, both internal and external to help guide future direction and to identify opportunities. Great strategic thinkers take all of this in and then they set aside time to think about all the experience and information to guide them in the planning and working on the issues, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead... More

References:

1. Changing Strategic Direction, Peter Skat-Rψrdam

2. Relentless Growth, Christopher Meyer

3. Direct from Dell, Michael Dell with Catherine Fredman