Using Thematic Thinking to Achieve Business Success, Growth, and Innovation

Leverage hidden similarities and connections to succeed in new markets and avert emerging business risks! Firmly rooted in the latest cognitive science, Thematic Thinking helps you recognize your great opportunities and grave threats in distant but related industries and markets. If you're an executive, entrepreneur, or strategist, it will help you illuminate blind spots on your strategic maps and innovation processes, by radically redefining what you see as similar to your core business.

Using Thematic Thinking to Achieve Business Success, Growth, and Innovation explains why this approach to innovation works so well, and how to successfully apply it in your business. Using realistic business cases, the authors show:

• How Thematic Thinking responds to today's radically shifting business environment, and the collapse of traditional market boundaries
• Why traditional approaches to innovation can often be counterproductive, and how to go beyond them
• How to systematically uncover deep similarities where most managers only see differences
• How to understand these similarities as immense new business opportunities - and uncover emerging risks you wouldn't otherwise notice until too late

• How to explore and combine themes, identify similarities, create and evaluate thematic ideas, organize for Thematic Thinking, and overcome obstacles to success
  Which Google manager would have imagined people substituting Facebook for Gmail? Which Nike manager recognizes the huge potential competitive threat now presented by Apple? With Thematic Thinking, linkages like this become clear - and innovative, once-hidden strategic options are revealed!

Autorentext

Julia K. Froehlich conducts research at the Institute for Organization and Human Resource Management at the University of Bern (Bern, Switzerland). She worked at the Institute for Leadership and Organization at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Munich, Germany) and the chair for Leadership and Human Resource Management at the WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (Koblenz, Germany), and was a visiting researcher at the University of Lugano (Switzerland). She is psychologist by training and devoted her doctoral thesis in management to thematic thinking. Her research focuses on managerial and organizational cognition in the fields of innovation and strategy. Her special interest lies in the idea itself; she is always on the lookout for great new ideas wherever she goes.

Michael Gibbert is professor of marketing at the University of Lugano (Switzerland). He is interested in innovation management and how creative ideas emerge and are turned into successful marketplace strategies. Unless he is in a bad mood, he uses Thematic Thinking every day. His academic work has been published in a variety of journals, including Journal of Product Innovation Management, R&D Management , Industrial Marketing Management , Research Policy , Strategic Management Journal , Organizational Research Methods , and others.

Martin Hoegl is professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Munich, Germany), where he heads the Institute for Leadership and Organization. Before joining LMU Munich, he served on the faculties of Washington State University (USA), Bocconi University (Milan, Italy), and WHU (Vallendar, Germany). His main research interests include leadership, collaboration, and innovation in organizations. Martin Hoegl held visiting professorships at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University, USA) and at the National Sun Yat-Sen University (Taiwan), and has given guest lectures at various international universities. He has been published in the Academy of Management Journal , Journal of International Business Studies , Journal of Management , Journal of Product Innovation Management , MIT Sloan Management Review , Organization Science , and other journals.

Inhalt

Preface xv

Chapter 1 Introducing Thematic Thinking: Start Seeing the World with Both Eyes 1

Strategic Opportunity Search 4

Recognizing Strategic Threats 6

Avoiding the Innovation Dead End: Reconsidering

What's "Distant" to Your Core Business 8

Takeaways 12

Chapter 2 Behind the Themes: How Thematic Ideas Are Motivated 13

Four Types of Motivation for Thematic Ideas 14

Improving the Experience 16

Achieving Customer Lock-On 19

Solving Problems 22

Reaching New Target Groups 26

Reaching Untapped Customer Groups:

Base of the Pyramid Innovation 27

Insights from the Base of the Pyramid 30

Takeaways 35

Case Overview 35

Case Study: Safe Cooking 38

Chapter 3 Kind(s) of Similar: Defining the Basics of Thematic Thinking 41

Types of Similarity 42

Themes 45

Association 46

Complementarity 48

Sources of Thematic Similarity 50

Operation 52

Evaluation 54

Effect 55

Complementarity 56

Takeaways 57

Chapter 4 Exploring Themes 59

Different Kinds of Themes (Not All Themes Are

Created Equal) 60

Creating New Themes (or Combining Existing Ones) 67

Thematic Distance 71

Abstract Themes 74

Analogies 76

Takeaways 79

Case Study: Washing Hands the Thematic Way 79

Chapter 5 The Thematic Power of Brands 81

Extending Brands 83

Coincidental Thematicness 87

Brand Alliances 91

Thematic Threats 97

Thematic Brand Extensions Do Not Work for

Everyone 99

Brands as Themes 104

Takeaways 105

Case Overview 105

Case Study: Italians' Lifestyle on the Road 107

Chapter 6 Thinking Thematic 111

Why Some Think Thematically and Others Don't 112

How to Create Thematic Ideas-and Don't Worry,

Everyone Can Do This 119

Guided Thematic Thinking 122

Fictional Case Study 1: TMD Furnishings 123

How to Recognize a Thematic Idea When

You See One 128

Takeaways 130

Fictional Case Study 2: The Coffee Team 131

Fictional Case Study 3: Tematech 132

Fictional Case Study 4: Lighthouse Theaters 133

Fictional Case Study 5: Tema Air 134

Your Task (For All Cases) 135

Chapter 7 Thematic Ideas in the Corporate Environment-Giving Them a Fighting Chance 137

What Makes a Good (Thematic) Idea? 139

Turning to Customers for Thematic Advice 141

Seeing the Whole Thematic Picture 144

Getting the Message Across 147

Surviving the Execution Gap 149

Selling Thematic Ideas 153

Takeaways 155

Case Study: Swedish Design Meets Chinese

Technology 156

Chapter 8 Linking Technological Innovation to Thematic Thinking 159

The New Life of Mobile Phones 162

Apps 167

Putting Real Life Online 168

The Internet of Things 169

Home Automation 170

High-tech Health Care 172

Takeaways 174

Case Study: Teenage Consumption 174

Chapter 9 Wrapping Up: Think Thematic 177

1.) THemes: If there is no theme, it is not thematic 178

2.) INtegration: Entities should be integrated within ideas 179

3.) Keep practicing 180

4.) THematic ideas face great dangers in the corporate context 181

5.) Experience: To understand a theme, you need personal experience 182

6.) Many items make up a theme: Think big 183

7.) Association and cultural awareness matter 184

8.) Taxonomic ideas can be great, but you shouldn't limit yourself to them 185

9.) Individuals differ in their preferences for ideas and kinds of similarities 186

10.) Customers' perspectives should be taken 187

Glossary 189

Readings 195

Endnotes 199

Ch. 1 199

Ch. 2 201

Ch. 3 204

Ch. 4 207

Ch. 5 209

Ch. 6 211

Ch. 7 213

Ch. 8 214

Ch. 9 215

Glossary 216

Index 217