Look Outside Your Industry for Ideas You Can Apply

When a client recently asked me to conduct a bench-marking study of companies in his industry, I advised him it would be a waste of time and money.

Why? Because he sought a breakthrough idea for improving his business’s performance. And that idea was much more likely to be sparked by observing companies outside his industry.

By focusing only on your own industry, you risk simply copying your competitors, rather than innovating new value for your customers.

When you look outside your industry, you spot ideas you can emulate, leverage, or learn from.

For example, even if you are in a totally different business than Google, you may be able to learn from its rapid pace of innovation; its diverse, ever-evolving product line; and its pricing models, which provide almost every product other than advertising (and there are many) for free.

Look at Apple’s distinctive retail experience, app developer community, elegant packaging, and the way they create customer evangelists.

Look at how Amazon suggests new products, personalized to each customer’s taste (a large percentage of purchases are suggested by Amazon), how valuable their “reviews” are, how their “Prime” memberships (which provide free 2-day shipping) have revolutionized customer buying habits, how Amazon has helped to create the electronic publishing business, and how their “subscription” based sales for consumable products like groceries and supplies have changed the way people buy.

Pick a company outside your industry, and then list what’s fascinating, controversial, new or different about it. Ask how you might apply each idea to your own business.

For a specific process for how you can apply ideas from outside your industry, see chapter six of my book, The Agility Advantage.