In our previous module, we have described the three pillars framework which is a simple, and yet comprehensive way to describe a firm’s business model. We have shown how it can be very useful both to capture the current business and corporate strategy of a firm and to think about its future. We also highlighted how many firms have been able to reinvent their business model when their current one was becoming mature, using for example the case of movie theaters in France, with the introduction of multiplexes at the beginning of the 90s. New and different business models have also successfully been developed by firms entering established industries, such as Southwest airlines in the US or its European copy Ryanair in the airline industry. In fact, we have looked at dozens of cases of business model re-inventions, both by existing firms or new entrants. Some are very recent, and some are less recent, but as relevant, since business model re-invention is not a new phenomenon, but a permanent one. Re-inventing your business model means re-inventing its value proposition, its value architecture, and as a consequence generating a new profit equation. From this large base of case studies that spreads over time, industries and geographies, we have drawn an approach to re-invent your business model. We call it the Odyssey 3.14 approach, and I will explain shortly why we named it like this. The question we asked ourselves was, what have these companies done to find radically new value propositions and value architectures? What common patterns can we identify? Based on our observations, we are proposing 14 directions in which to explore to find new ideas for a new value proposition or for a new value architecture. Seven of them refer to the value proposition and seven of them refer to the value architecture. Thus the name of our approach “Odyssey”, for the exploration, the travel, “3” for the three pillars of the business model, and “14” for the 14 directions to explore. A direction means a topic to be discussed. The best way to materialize it is in a series of questions to ask yourself. For example, exploring the direction entitled “reduce clients' hassles” means asking yourself two questions. What are the complications, the hassles, our clients experience when using our products or services? And how could we reduce these complications? In fact, these directions are a way to structure a discussion or a brainstorming session, or an ideation session, as one would say these days, within the company. These directions are not exclusive of one another and discussing those related to the value proposition or those related to the value architecture is equally interesting and productive in terms of new ideas, as both pillars are so closely related. Therefore, if one wants to be exhaustive in one’s search for a new business model, all 14 of them should be explored, even though some of them might lead to fewer ideas than others. However, before we move into presenting these fourteen directions, there are three very important points that I would like to stress. We could call them pre-requisites to business model reinvention. We can find them in every single business model innovation story, they are permanent features. We call them ”anticipate trends", “build on customer insights”, and “break an industry belief”. Let me explain what we are talking about. First, let’s talk about trends. Spotting a trend is not enough for a company, it’s not going to give it any advantage. Trends are there only to be observed, until they become common wisdom or regulations. In order to be truly innovative and develop competitive advantages, companies have to act early on the trends, when they have not yet become “common wisdom”. An excellent example of such a company is Amazon, which over the 20 or so years of its existence, successively has anticipated, or if you wish, acted early, on the Internet and e-commerce trend. Then on the cloud computing trend, then on the mobile devices trend, introducing the Kindle for example. And more recently on the robotics trend, robotizing their warehouses, or on the bots trend, with the launch of Alexa device. In fact, companies can gain even more when they are able to build new business models that encompass more than one trend. For example,“BeMyEye” is a company which surfs on both the “smartphone” and “crowdsourcing” trends, to gather data in less than 48 hours from many retail outlets for brands or retailers by having over 600,000 pairs of “eyes” throughout Europe who can take pictures with their smartphones in stores with very short delays. What about customer insights? What are they really? Customer insights comes from seeing small behavioral details in customers, entering their intimacy. For example, one of the most successful bikes in the world, the B’twin, was conceived by Decathlon, a French sports retailer that carries its own brands, after hundreds of hours of observation on their shop floor. They would observe how male and female buyers behave in the bicycle section, how they circulate, what they do with the exposed bikes, how they try them, and from these observations, designed a bike for both men and women. In the B’Twin, they combined women’s and men’s aspirations for a bike while solving an important customer pain point: when each family member has their own bike, they are seldom used. A B’twin can be used more often by several people in the family. As for the industry beliefs, sometimes called industry myths, they are everywhere. In all business sectors, you will find that all players, all competitors, follow certain common ways of doing things. Usually, these common behaviors come from the past. They are former key success factors of the industry, and they have survived over time, without ever being challenged. Eventually, they have become myths, beliefs, constraints. Let’s look at a few examples. In the airline industry, for many years, all airlines have offered meals during their flights. In the hotel industry, it was understood for ages that a hotel should have a reception, whatever its category. In the banking industry, banks would only lend money against a guarantee of some sort, either an asset, or a secure source of revenue. However, all these myths, these industry beliefs, have been challenged, pulled down by companies that have launched very successful business models. In the airline industry by low-cost airlines such as Southwest or Ryan Air, in the hotel industry by Formule 1 hotels, in the banking industry by Grameen bank and all the other micro-finance institutions. Having these pre-requisites in mind, in this module, module 3, we will detail each of the 7 directions related to the value proposition, illustrated by many company examples, and in module 4, we will detail in a similar way the 7 directions related to the value architecture.
