Setting the Course for Your Next Strategic Breakthrough

In tackling new strategic opportunities, two common business tactics are: “develop new products” designed to appeal to your market base or “develop new markets” for an existing product.  According to Harvard Business Review’s recent piece: “Locating Your Next Strategic Opportunity” and a new company, Quid; the shortest distance to your next opportunity may not follow a classic or clear-cut path.  

Having followed Quid co-founder Sean Gourley’s work – from YouNoodle [as their CTO], his popular TED talk, and several in-person conversations – it makes sense that a company he’s co-founded would stake their claim on just that premise.  A new way of analyzing and applying compelling business data – takes an obtuse notion and pinpoints an attainable strategic goal.

Here’s how it works:

Leveraging information about the thousands of privately held companies, Quid uses semantic clustering  to  accurately predict where what your company/product does today may offer possibilities to  address new and different business challenges.  A scatter plot shows where empty zones exist within industries – market opportunities with little competitive pressure and yet offer possible  rewards.

“Most companies cluster around established sectors, but a few will sit in the white spaces between the clusters and can represent the seeds of new technology sectors.” says Kurzweilai.net

Examples of where Quid has applied the technique include seemingly unconnected sectors such as biopharma and gaming, yet a smattering of companies exist to address opportunities in that market.

I found this HBR piece fascinating because private company data that Quid is privy to – both structured and unstructured – analyzed in new ways could lead to your company’s next niche thing!  Continuing with the innovation and strategic opportunity theme, be sure to catch innovation in action for customers, partners, and influencers from the SapphireNOW Conference, here on the virtual platform.