Breaking Barriers to Innovation: Developing New Business Models

Resource constraints and opportunity costs are two key reasons our clients seek our support for innovation projects, but knowledge gaps, such as how to develop a new business model, also drive our clients to seek our team’s expertise.

It isn’t a lack of smart people on their teams. It’s just that they don’t have direct experience in a particular category or channel. Plus, bandwidth can be an issue. Not all teams have the time to research and create new business models because it can be a risky proposition and difficult to divert resources from safer opportunities that fit within their current go to market system.

For example, I recently worked on developing a new business model for a client who was combining their non-durable product with a durable product and selling that, as a kit, into a retailer. Our client was entering a totally new category and the product required new partnerships such as licensing.

The first hurdle was to help them think about the business model in a new way, then to look at whether their go-to-market strategy was financially feasible. The opportunity didn't fit within their typical P&L models. It wasn't a matter of plugging in the regular COGs and applying typical assumptions to create a pro forma P&L.

We had to build a totally new kind of acquisition model, which ended up borrowing from direct-to-consumer business models. We helped this client decide whether it would be worthwhile to invest in this innovation in order to attract new customers.

Because I and others on the Mission Field team have experience working with different business models across multiple CPG categories and channels, our knowledge translated into helping this client overcome a barrier to entering a new category and getting their product to a new target.

Want to chat about business models for your innovation? Send us a note at hello@mission-field.com.