Discovery
Engage in an opportunity discovery and creation process.
Discovering opportunities can be a highly planned and purposeful corporate action. It is a matter of prioritizing, setting aside the always present tasks of the day, pulling together an interdisciplinary team, and giving them the encouragement and freedom to explore ways to do things differently.
Some opportunities are gaps in the marketplace waiting to be discovered. Clayton Christensen tells the story of a quick service restaurant that faced an unexpected explosion of milkshake sales in the early morning hours. Brought in as a consultant to investigate, Christensen determined that the milkshake was being used as a substitute for coffee during early morning commutes. The milkshake was cold to hold onto, kept people awake, and lasted for twenty to thirty minutes (the typical length of the drive). A sales opportunity had been discovered, somewhat by accident.
Other opportunities are created seemingly from thin air. Opportunity creation ties more closely to the process of effectuation, such as inventing and developing Honda's robotic capabilities to create opportunities for use of their robotic technology in medical operating rooms.