Learning Journal of IND5001

Disruptive innovation & sustaining innovation

Through the example of Encyclopedia Britannica, I understood what the fourth industrial revolution is. As its name suggests, it is a revolution, follow it or you die. From the first industrial revolution driven by the steam engine, to the second industrial revolution driven by the internal combustion engine, to the third industrial revolution driven by electricity, and now to the fourth industrial revolution driven by data, machines and dehumanized data and information are increasingly powerful compared to humans But old industry leaders like Kodak and Encyclopedia Britannica face the same “Innovator’s Dilemma” when faced with a new technological revolution. They have to choose between holding onto an existing market by doing the same thing a bit better or capturing new markets by embracing new technologies and adopting new business models. The old business models were slow to change, not because their leadership didn’t understand the situation, but because they had to cut existing industries if they were to conform to change. And their industry is hard to change because of legacy systems, sales and distribution channels, and processes. The boss cannot wait so long, not because they is stupid, but because they is rational. Usually, the CEO is in office for a short period of time, which is not enough for him to make such a big change. Then the teacher introduced the concept of sustaining innovation, which made me realize that for the old business, there is still a glimmer of life left - as long as they renew their industry in accordance with the way of sustaining innovation. Innovation In this module, we learnt what, why, and how of innovation. Invention is creating something new. But Innovation needs to be:

• Desirable
• Feasible
• Valuable The desirability should be considered first, because the top 1 start-up’s mistake is building something nobody wants. The most important part of this module is the comparison between Innovation and Imitation. There is an old Chinese saying: He who learns from me lives, and he who resembles me dies. So, we are not against imitation, and even encourage it. It is obvious that in recent years, countries such as China and India have been able to rely on imitation to create a large number of new industries and rapidly close the distance between them and European and American countries. Imitation costs less money and time. It should be considered seriously in business, not by moral criticism. You don’t have to be first. You just have to be different and better. By the way, the teacher mentioned the fast expansion of Shopee and the quartly drop of its revenue. So I watched Shopee company, not even a few days Shopee big layoffs news came over. I wondered if the teacher had some insider information. Or maybe the teacher can catch sensitive signals in business faster than we can?

Design thinking

In this module, we learnt design thinking method. As a style of thinking, Design Thinking is generally considered the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context. Design thinking is not a random thought, design thinking requires us to follow a fixed pattern and consider some fixed problems. It requires us to follow a fixed pattern, to consider fixed problems, and to think differently while following some rules. By the way, if we think randomly, we might create some stupid product showed in the class. Design thinking integrates

• viability
• desirability
• feasibility EMPATHIZE: Learn about the audience for whom you are designing, by observation and interview. As the saying goes, if you know your enemy, you can win a hundred battles. What if we become a target customer too? Do we want to use this product ourselves? So, some food companies actually encourage their employees to consume their own products. DEFINE: Create a point of view that is based on user needs and insights. IDEATE: Brainstorm and come up with as many creative solutions as possible. In fact, we misunderstood the teacher’s requirement to prepare a business model. We had a brainstorming session even before the teacher taught us the business model canvas (BMC). We tried to figure out this problem without the knowledge of BMC. You are given $100K to design a business model canvas. Think of an idea for a new business or a refinement/expansion of an existing business. I learnt the way of brainstorm from website. And before the brainstorming began, I established a few principles from what I have known
• Every idea is a good idea
• Every question counts
• Ready to kill your idea
• Quantity of ideas over quality
• Only judge an idea after discussion When brainstorming, we need to unleash our thinking nature, so every idea is a good idea, every question counts and only judge an idea after discussion. In addition, we need to maximize the use of human imagination, so say whatever comes to mind, and quantity of ideas over quality. But after the brainstorming session, we must get our feet on the ground, and we must be ready to kill your idea. To apply the principles, I set 5 minutes ticker for each of our group members, and 10 minutes ticker for group discussion and 10 minutes for add-ons. It is kind of a design thinking method, we didn’t think randomly, but in a particular style. The result of our brainstorming is, we imagined several possible new businesses in Singapore. Unfortunately, it is in Chinese.

PROTOTYPE: Build a representation of one or more of your ideas to show to others. TEST: Share your prototyped idea with your original user for feedback.

Business model canvas & Value proposition canvas

In this module we learnt how to build business model canvas and value proposition canvas. A business model describes how a company creates and distributes a compelling value proposition that customers are willing to pay for at a price that yields an acceptable profit for the company. A typical BMC looks like this

Business model is a story of how your enterprise will create, deliver and capture value. Taking Nescafe’s business model as an example, it is easy to construct a circular way of thinking by analyzing it in a BMC way. The Value proposition is delivered to the Customers through the Channels thus gaining Revenue. Cost is divided among Key partners to acquire Key resources to produce the Value proposition through Key activities. With BMC, we can structure our complex thoughts quickly. By forcing ourselves to think about the necessary aspects of realizing a business model, we can prevent the design of the business model from going haywire. In the longer term, if we keep polishing the BMC, we are iteratively upgrading our industry in an idealized environment. To build a business model, we must combine the concepts we learnt before as well. For example, if we want to create a business which deliver drones to farmers, we have to consider many things. We need to consider if they like A need B want C. We need to eake Desirability, Feasibility and Viability into account. Last week I met a PhD student from China who is working on a GRIP project in UTown., It’s about the project topic of a robot dog that assists the blind

I’m sorry I can’t reveal more in this project. His PPT had VPC but no BMC, I tried to use BMC to help him fill this gap, and by the way, I helped him to expand his idea: is it possible to expand his business in the tourism industry. I was communicating with him directly in Chinese, so I made the model in Chinese as well. Because this model is only for communication convenience, I did not take the standard canvas form, but used the mind map. The picture of that BMC is here