“Hitting them where they aren’t” outflanks the leader by creative imitation.
Here, the innovator doesn’t create a major new product or service. Instead, it takes something just created by somebody else and improves upon it. This is imitation. But it is creative imitation because the innovator reworks the new product or service to better satisfy customers’ wants and needs. Once the innovator succeeds in creating what customers want, it can achieve leadership and take control of the market.
The perfect example is how IBM became the leading producer of PCs in the 1970s. Apple invented the PC. When the Apple appeared, it was an instant sensation. IBM set to work to outflank the Apple. It asked, “What are Apple’s shortcomings?” Within eighteen months IBM had on the market a PC that did everything the PC customers needed and wanted but had what the Apple lacked: software. And within another year IBM’s PC had become the market leader worldwide; it held that position for more than ten years. And Apple had become marginal. It almost went under and only turned itself around into a respectable niche player twenty-odd years later, in the late 1990s.
ACTON POINT: Look for a successful innovation of a competitor’s and improve upon it, thus outflanking your competitor.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial Strategies (Corpedia Online Program)
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker