CEMEX really understands what the need of their market is. Mexicans’ homes are very important to them but sometimes it takes them four to seven years to build an additional room. CEMEX adds an emotion (and not merely function) to the packaging and starts marketing and packaging their cement as a “gift of dreams” for any important occasion, from weddings to baptisms.

market. If you are in the drill selling business you need to determine whether people are buying your drills or the holes they need to make. An interesting example is when you add emotion to your product. CEMEX cement is the world’s third-largest cement producer. They realised that they have to do something totally different from the other players in the unattractive Mexican market at the time.

CEMEX really understands what the need of their market is. Mexicans’ homes are very important to them but sometimes it takes them four to seven years to build an additional room. CEMEX adds an emotion (and not merely function) to the packaging and starts marketing and packaging their cement as a “gift of dreams” for any important occasion, from weddings to baptisms. Now the gift-giver helps to build their family or friends’ houses and CEMEX becomes part of their homes. Incredible!

Another important aspect to keep in mind is; how to add good value without increasing the price. And you need to follow good change management practices if you are to imbed the new innovation culture successfully.”

Maggie continues to explain three methodologies that organisations can use to

It is not just about capturing the market.

affect Business Model Innovation. She covers Blue Oceans Strategy, Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing.

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne wrote the book titled Blue Oceans Strategy. They discussed organisational change by using a step-by-step recipe.

how their business models look. The first step is to map the current business model. “I see many organisations already identifying gaps in their model and coming up with innovative solutions by just mapping it. The next step is to investigate what other players in your field of business are doing to deliver value to their customers and to map their value-adds out. The third step is to map out your own value adds on the same map as you competitors.

You notice that both your graphs form the same basic pattern. This in essence means that you are competing against your competitors and that you may not be adding value to your customers. The Blue Oceans Strategy helps you to identify white spaces in this comparative graph. Determining how to add value to your customers in terms of these white spaces and coming up with ways to ensure that your graph does not align with your competitor gives you ample scope to innovate in. Another example

Sometimes organisations are not clear on

September 2011 | Management Today 19