Most of the considerations on Trends (on the near future of Business) are wrong because they are based on a “linear” conception of the evolution of the Market that is not able to perceive what the real changes are taking place.
The misandestunding about Disruptive innovation
There are a lot of misandestunding about Disruptive innovation°.
In times of radical change [Breaking Point°] like the current one innovation – changes in strategies – it is necessary to follow the principles of Disruptive Innovation, or changes are produced that do not bring anything positive to the Value of the product (to the results of sales).
That is when you are in a phase of non-linear evolution [Disruption Age°] it is necessary to make a radical change of mindset and structures (a true change of the Business Paradigm).
A need of new Forecasting skills
In the eras of disruption it is necessary to develop new skills of interpreting the New Demand° (a Trends Forecasting more suited to the new Disruption Age°). Trends Forecasting for the Disruption Age
Today it is necessary to develop a New Marketing° that overturns its paradigm, the Marketing of pro-sumers (the Participated Marketing).
Toward to New Marketing (1): Beyond the tools of the current market
To understand the New Demand, it is necessary to understand that either we adapt to trends
with a correct interpretation or sooner or later we are thrown out of the market (or politics)..
Trends Forecasting for the Disruption Age
Some of the mistakes made by the Market Big Players in evaluating the evolution of trends are:
● THE FUTURE SCENARIOS (THE TRENDS) CAN NOT BE UNDERSTOOD BY USING MINDSET OBSOLETE (the current one).
The fact is that when analyzing an innovation scenario it is necessary to be able to guess what the next future will be.
Innovating means improving people’s quality of life. In order to frame innovation correctly, it is therefore necessary to realize what the needs of people (and the Society) will be in the near future. That is, it is about being able to project new products in a different scenario from the current one (in the case of a disruption phase like the current one, it is a very different scenario).
On the other hand, if one imagines inserting the innovated products into a “as is now” scenario, one is not able to make a rational prediction: one can at most develop a narration (as in science fiction novels, where a future is envisaged, in which the horse-drawn carts fly – see J. Verne).
● TECHNOLOGIES ARE NOT A KEY POINT OF INNOVATION.
Technological innovation is indeed a linear innovation, therefore in conflict with a disruptive evolution of products (better technologies are not able, in itself, to satisfy the real, urgent, needs of the new Demand).
To be able to induce the Consumer to buy new products it is necessary to develop a new Value-utility based on Low-tech technologies (consumer technologies). ( see “Value-oriented innovation new Value proposition“ // “Disruptive innovation is not based on technologies“ // “The role of technologies in innovation“)
● WE PROSPECT “FUTURIST” SCENARIOS, FROM SCIENCE FICTION, AND THEREFORE UNSUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS.
This happens precisely because the mindset used to understand the evolution of the Market is obsolete, and leads to imagine the near future as the result of a linear evolution of current products.
The products imagined in this way are unsustainable due to the fact that they are not able to satisfy the new Demand; and for other objective problems:
● a further evolution of the technologies is not appropriate neither to the Producers, nor to the Consumers, since
– on the one hand it entails unsustainable costs: both for the Producers and for the Consumers (up to now these costs have been justified by the arguments of Marketing that relies on the emotional level of the status symbol, but these costs, in the current phase of recession, become a fatal problem).
– and at the same time concentrating the business on the development of hi-tech products leads it to adopt a mindset incompatible with a disruptive approach. That is not able to produce the Value required by the New Demand: a Value-utility that allows the Consumer to effectively meet its needs (the products based on the low tech – the consumer technologies – today are able to develop a value-profit higher than that of hi-tech based products).
● the products imagined in these futurist scenarios are intrinsically unsustainable – in fact unattainable – due to the lack of their connection with the actual reality. In this case it is in fact used that “creative imagination” used up to now to propagate emotional contexts “dream” in order to sell products without real useful value.
The problem of this type of mindset “free” from objective constraints is that it can not work when it comes to imagining real future scenarios. The products displayed in these scenarios are in fact not designed in function of the real sustainability of the technologies that are expected to be adopted; nor in their interaction with the contexts in which they must be inserted.
