Technology
10 Types of Innovation: The Art of Discovering a Breakthrough Product
The Art of Discovering Breakthrough Products
As venture capitalist Peter Thiel once put it, “competition is for losers.”
It’s inevitable that every company must be out there battling for market share, but you don’t really want to be in a situation where the competition is so stiff that any potential upside is eroded away in the process—―a scenario known as perfect competition in economics.
To avoid perfect competition, companies must strive to build an economic moat that gives them a sustainable competitive advantage over time. While these protective moats can arise from a number of different sources, in today’s information economy they most often arise from the power of innovation.
But where does innovation come from, and is there a universal framework that can be applied to help consistently make big breakthroughs?
The 10 Types of Innovation
In today’s infographic, we showcase the culmination of years of in-depth research from Doblin, an innovation-focused firm now owned by Deloitte.
After examining over 2,000 business innovations throughout history, Doblin uncovered that most breakthroughs don’t necessarily stem from engineering inventions or rare discoveries.
Instead, they observed that innovations can be categorized within a range of 10 distinct dimensions—and anyone can use the resulting strategic framework to analyze the competition, to stress test for product weaknesses, or to find new opportunities for their products.
Here are the 10 types of innovation:
# | Innovation Type | Description |
---|---|---|
1. | Profit Model | How you make money |
2. | Network | Connections with others to create value |
3. | Structure | Alignment of your talent and assets |
4. | Process | Signature of superior methods for doing your work |
5. | Product Performance | Distinguishing features and functionality |
6. | Product System | Complementary products and services |
7. | Service | Support and enhancements that surround your offerings |
8. | Channel | How your offerings are delivered to customers and users |
9. | Brand | Representation of your offerings and business |
10. | Customer Engagement | Distinctive interactions you foster |
From Theory to Practice
What does innovation look like in practice?
Let’s see how well-known businesses have leveraged each of these 10 types of innovation in the past, while also diving into the tactics that modern businesses can use to consistently make new product breakthroughs:.
Innovation Types #1-4: “Configuration”
According to Doblin, the first four types of innovation center around the configuration of the company, and all the work that happens “behind the scenes”.
Although innovation types in this category are not directly customer-facing, as you can see in the examples below, they can still have an important impact on the customer experience. How your company and products are organized can have a crucial downstream effect, even enabling innovations in other categories.
Two of the most interesting examples here are Google and McDonald’s. Both companies made internal innovations that empowered their people to make important advancements further on downstream.
In the case of McDonald’s, the franchisee insight that led to the introduction of the Egg McMuffin spearheaded the company’s entire breakfast offering, which now accounts for 25% of revenues. Breakfast is also now the company’s most profitable segment.
Innovation Types #5-6: “Offering”
When most people think of innovation, it’s likely the offering category that comes to mind.
Making improvements to product performance is an obvious but difficult type of innovation, and unless it’s accompanied by a deeply ingrained company culture towards technical innovation, such advancements may only create a temporary advantage against the competition.
This is the part of the reason that Doblin recommends that companies focus on combining multiple areas of innovation together—it creates a much more stable economic moat.
Apple has a reputation for innovation, but the product ecosystem highlighted above is an underappreciated piece of the company’s strategy. By putting thought into the ecosystem of products—and ensuring they work together flawlessly—additional utility is created, while also making it harder for customers to switch away from Apple products.
Innovation Types #7-10: “Experience”
These types of innovation are the most customer-facing, but this also makes them the most subject to interpretation.
While other innovations tend to occur upstream, innovations in experience all get trialed in the hands of customers. For this reason, intense care is needed in rolling out these ideas.
In the early days of the internet, online shipping was precarious at best—but Amazon’s introduction of Amazon Prime and free expedited shipping for all members has been a game-changer for e-commerce.
Executing on such a promise was no small task, but today there are 150 million users of Prime worldwide, including some in metro areas who can get items in as little as two hours.
Making Innovations Happen in Your Organization
How can organizations approach the 10 types of innovation from a more tactical perspective?
One useful resource is Doblin’s free public list of over 100 tactics that correspond with the aforementioned framework.
The one-pager PDF provides a range of typical dimensions for approaching each type of innovation. In essence, these are all different ways you could consider when trying to differentiate your product or service—and at the very least, it provides a useful thought experiment for managers and marketers.
For those interested in learning more on this topic, Doblin also has a highly-rated book as well as other accessories that leverage the above framework.
Technology
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
Cloud computing service providers generated $270 billion in revenues last year, concentrated among a few giants.
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Today, the three largest cloud computing service providers command 66% of the global market.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have generated billions in revenues through their cloud infrastructure that provide the computing power companies need to store data. What’s more, most AI models are run on the cloud, creating a surge in computing demand for cloud providers.
The above graphic shows the largest cloud providers globally, based on data from Synergy Research Group.
Breaking Down the Cloud Market
Here are the world’s top cloud computing service providers based on enterprise revenues as of the fourth quarter of 2023:
Provider | Country | Market Share Q4 2023 |
---|---|---|
Amazon Web Services | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 31% |
Microsoft Azure | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 24% |
Google Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 11% |
Alibaba Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 4% |
Salesforce | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 3% |
IBM Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Oracle | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Tencent Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 2% |
Other | 🌐 Other | 21% |
With 31% of the global market share, Amazon’s cloud division posted $24.2 billion in revenues over the quarter.
AWS is a major cash engine for the company, but growth slowed over 2023 as enterprises and startups cut back on tech spending. Annual sales growth compared to the same quarter last year grew by 13%—far below competitors Microsoft and Google, whose cloud divisions grew by 30% and 26%, respectively.
As we can see, U.S. firms make up the lion’s share of the market, while China’s Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud together comprise 5% of the global share.
The AI Boom and the Cloud
Given that a significant chunk of AI models are run on the cloud, the industry may be positioned to see greater demand as momentum accelerates.
In fact, newer AI systems are as much as 10 to 100 times larger than older models. In line with this, major cloud providers are seeing high demand for cloud services to allow companies across financial to manufacturing sectors to run large language models on their platforms.
Today, 98% of companies globally rely on the cloud for at least one part of their business applications, which may present a market opportunity for the industry as advancements in AI continue to grow.
-
Demographics5 days ago
Top 20 Countries Where Young People Are the Happiest
-
Markets1 week ago
Visualizing the Green Investments of Sovereign Wealth Funds
-
Markets1 week ago
Ranked: The 20 Top Chinese Stocks by Market Cap, and Performance YTD
-
Markets1 week ago
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
-
Technology1 week ago
Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI
-
Markets1 week ago
Visualizing the Biggest Companies on Major Stock Exchanges
-
Money1 week ago
The World’s Top 50 Largest Banks by Consolidated Assets
-
Demographics1 week ago
Visualizing the Declining Birth Rate in Japan