In last blog post I focused on Innovative leadership, and this time I decided to continue developing the topic of innovation. No need to outline the complexity of nowadays business for companies. The environment is highly challenging for startups or even for well established companies. Once you have developed products and already succeed in one market, this does not ensure success in other market. Underestimation of the competition or your power of influence might be costly and put the development at risk.

Innovation starts with the product, but does not stop there. Many products were discovered by accident. Take as an example a microwave oven, aspirin, antibiotics. Even pu-erh tea in China, which is used for over several thousand years now, was discovered by accident – due to high temperature and humid air conditions, tea cake started fermentation which lead to the change of the taste and colour to become most favoured drink of China. There are new research by lucky accident – one of latest development with neurodegenerative disorders, i.e. Alzheimer’s disease. Discovery of stress granules which are generated by body for repair works. But due to mutation they can become stickier and initiate neurodegenerative disease by accumulation at specific areas of brain (research of Drs Wolozin, Lee and Trojanowski).

Research of any innovative products is always challenging, costly and take long time to get on the market. But when you have a discovery like this, pushing on expansion, new market entry cannot always be your success formula or up to an appetite of the company. Regardless the category of goods or services your company is playing in, the challenging task remains – how to enter the market, become a popular choice for the consumers?

Full strategy matters here – which channels, what message, which means you may have. “Companies can improve their odds by reimagining the entire approach” – suggests Chandra Gnanasambandam and Michael Uhl in their HBM article “Innovation Is as Much About Finding Partners as Building Products”.

Indeed, playing on the market is about the odds – either you have better odds acting alone, or working together in partnerships. Selecting a partner who has an interest in your product is great, but are you sure they share the same vision or have sufficient resources to gear up the sales? Setting partnership models can strengthen your odds winning against competition, as it becomes very difficult to copy your success in the market by your competitors. Partnership matchmaking is something you should consider rather than rushing into new market alone.