Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Entrepreneurs spot gaps

I sometimes find myself explaining that part of my role is to look at the marketplace around, and to try to see into the future, hunting for problems that need to be solved.

For me, this is a critical part of the marketing process, market research. It's something that we then take to innovate a solution that we can bring to market at a profit to sustain operations and further growth.

One of the biggest challenges, surprisingly, is in explaining the opportunity to others. If I were proposing a vacuum cleaner, it would be easy. Because people know what a vacuum cleaner is, the question at once focuses on why this new cleaner is better than Dyson or Hoover.

But if people have no frame of reference, this is a genuine innovation, then the process becomes more complex and lengthy; and only the equally innovative or visionary grasp the potential.
Get more like this