Knowing: Strategy as the Foundation of Innovation

Knowing is the first stage in the Growth Engine innovation process. During this stage, Growth Engine leads you through a series of exercises to 1) ensure that your organization has well thought out, aligned strategies in place, or 2) creatively lead you to unique visions, strategies and company or brand positionings. A strategic understanding is the foundation to good innovation.

Objectives of the Knowing Stage:

Understand current brand equities as a foundation for growth.
Identify areas of opportunity based on current strategies and core competencies.
Identify and assess current innovation process.
Inventory, evaluate and categorize current innovation portfolio.
Identify and prioritize highest potential projects or initiatives.

Services Provided During the Knowing Stage

Visioning: Visions help identify direction and purpose. A good vision creates an organizational focus. We help you create your true vision and thus your future. We believe this "dream of a future" should represent why a company is in business. What is its purpose for being? What economic, social and/or human value does this company bring to this world?
Strategy Development: Strategy is knowing what you need to do to get to your future and then allocating appropriate resources. But strategy is also about clarifying what you are not going to do, either in the short term or ever! This clarity is especially important when seeking new business opportunities through innovation. Growth Engine can creatively lead the management team to explore alternative approaches to get to your future.
Positioning: All brands and companies need a unique and compelling positioning to excel in this competitive business environment. Growth Engine firmly believes the inspiration for that work starts and ends with the consumer (or customer). Growth Engine's process engages consumers in unique "conversations" to uncover compelling insights into what motivates them. Growth Engine also uses outside studies and trend research to data mine for innovation ideas.

Techniques Used During the Knowing Stage

Company Takeover: Strategic development teams imagine their company has been acquired by an outside company famous for a particular core competency and how that might change the company's current strategy.
Questioning Assumptions: This technique challenges the assumptions the company is currently making about its customers, clients, business processes, core competencies, ways to grow, etc.
War Gaming: A technique to assess and anticipate competitive responses to a company's future strategic initiatives including new product, innovative marketing and business acquisitions.
Scenario Staging: Similar to War Gaming, except that the simulations are focused on imagined future scenarios from possible events/developments in the world as a whole, not just competitors.
Problem Re-Definition/20 Questions: Recognizing that the way a problem or opportunity is defined can affect the possible creative ideas and solutions, this technique encourages the idea-generating team to imaginatively re-think and re-frame the challenge before ever generating any ideas.
Market Redefinition: Typically employed by industry/category share leaders, this technique encourages a company to redefine their market share from a high percentage of their currently-defined market, to a much lower share of a more broadly defined market.