Technology
10 Types of Innovation: The Art of Discovering a Breakthrough Product
The Art of Discovering Breakthrough Products
As venture capitalist Peter Thiel once put it, “competition is for losers.”
It’s inevitable that every company must be out there battling for market share, but you don’t really want to be in a situation where the competition is so stiff that any potential upside is eroded away in the process—―a scenario known as perfect competition in economics.
To avoid perfect competition, companies must strive to build an economic moat that gives them a sustainable competitive advantage over time. While these protective moats can arise from a number of different sources, in today’s information economy they most often arise from the power of innovation.
But where does innovation come from, and is there a universal framework that can be applied to help consistently make big breakthroughs?
The 10 Types of Innovation
In today’s infographic, we showcase the culmination of years of in-depth research from Doblin, an innovation-focused firm now owned by Deloitte.
After examining over 2,000 business innovations throughout history, Doblin uncovered that most breakthroughs don’t necessarily stem from engineering inventions or rare discoveries.
Instead, they observed that innovations can be categorized within a range of 10 distinct dimensions—and anyone can use the resulting strategic framework to analyze the competition, to stress test for product weaknesses, or to find new opportunities for their products.
Here are the 10 types of innovation:
# | Innovation Type | Description |
---|---|---|
1. | Profit Model | How you make money |
2. | Network | Connections with others to create value |
3. | Structure | Alignment of your talent and assets |
4. | Process | Signature of superior methods for doing your work |
5. | Product Performance | Distinguishing features and functionality |
6. | Product System | Complementary products and services |
7. | Service | Support and enhancements that surround your offerings |
8. | Channel | How your offerings are delivered to customers and users |
9. | Brand | Representation of your offerings and business |
10. | Customer Engagement | Distinctive interactions you foster |
From Theory to Practice
What does innovation look like in practice?
Let’s see how well-known businesses have leveraged each of these 10 types of innovation in the past, while also diving into the tactics that modern businesses can use to consistently make new product breakthroughs:.
Innovation Types #1-4: “Configuration”
According to Doblin, the first four types of innovation center around the configuration of the company, and all the work that happens “behind the scenes”.
Although innovation types in this category are not directly customer-facing, as you can see in the examples below, they can still have an important impact on the customer experience. How your company and products are organized can have a crucial downstream effect, even enabling innovations in other categories.
Two of the most interesting examples here are Google and McDonald’s. Both companies made internal innovations that empowered their people to make important advancements further on downstream.
In the case of McDonald’s, the franchisee insight that led to the introduction of the Egg McMuffin spearheaded the company’s entire breakfast offering, which now accounts for 25% of revenues. Breakfast is also now the company’s most profitable segment.
Innovation Types #5-6: “Offering”
When most people think of innovation, it’s likely the offering category that comes to mind.
Making improvements to product performance is an obvious but difficult type of innovation, and unless it’s accompanied by a deeply ingrained company culture towards technical innovation, such advancements may only create a temporary advantage against the competition.
This is the part of the reason that Doblin recommends that companies focus on combining multiple areas of innovation together—it creates a much more stable economic moat.
Apple has a reputation for innovation, but the product ecosystem highlighted above is an underappreciated piece of the company’s strategy. By putting thought into the ecosystem of products—and ensuring they work together flawlessly—additional utility is created, while also making it harder for customers to switch away from Apple products.
Innovation Types #7-10: “Experience”
These types of innovation are the most customer-facing, but this also makes them the most subject to interpretation.
While other innovations tend to occur upstream, innovations in experience all get trialed in the hands of customers. For this reason, intense care is needed in rolling out these ideas.
In the early days of the internet, online shipping was precarious at best—but Amazon’s introduction of Amazon Prime and free expedited shipping for all members has been a game-changer for e-commerce.
Executing on such a promise was no small task, but today there are 150 million users of Prime worldwide, including some in metro areas who can get items in as little as two hours.
Making Innovations Happen in Your Organization
How can organizations approach the 10 types of innovation from a more tactical perspective?
One useful resource is Doblin’s free public list of over 100 tactics that correspond with the aforementioned framework.
The one-pager PDF provides a range of typical dimensions for approaching each type of innovation. In essence, these are all different ways you could consider when trying to differentiate your product or service—and at the very least, it provides a useful thought experiment for managers and marketers.
For those interested in learning more on this topic, Doblin also has a highly-rated book as well as other accessories that leverage the above framework.
Technology
Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI
We visualized the results of an analysis by the World Economic Forum, which uncovered the jobs most impacted by AI.
Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.
In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.
Data and Methodology
To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.
With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.
Department | Large impact (%) | Small impact (%) | No impact (%) |
---|---|---|---|
IT | 73 | 26 | 1 |
Finance | 70 | 21 | 9 |
Customer Sales | 67 | 16 | 17 |
Operations | 65 | 18 | 17 |
HR | 57 | 41 | 2 |
Marketing | 56 | 41 | 3 |
Legal | 46 | 50 | 4 |
Supply Chain | 43 | 18 | 39 |
In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.
Where AI will make the biggest impact
Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.
Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.
Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.
-
Money7 days ago
Visualizing All of the U.S. Currency in Circulation
-
Markets2 weeks ago
Ranked: South Korea’s Largest Companies by Market Capitalization
-
VC+2 weeks ago
What’s New on VC+ in March?
-
Economy2 weeks ago
Confidence in the Global Economy, by Country
-
Wealth1 week ago
Mapped: Where Do the Wealthiest People in the World Live?
-
Misc1 week ago
Ranked: Global Airlines with the Most Plane Crashes
-
Technology1 week ago
Visualizing iPhone 15 Production by Manufacturer in 2023
-
Automotive1 week ago
Visualizing Global Electric Vehicle Sales in 2023, by Market Share