What should a company do to defend a slim market lead in a fast-changing industry against a powerful incumbent with significantly greater financial resources and brand recognition?
MBA students got to grips
with this wicked issue in an interactive workshop, working in groups on a
tricky innovation challenge for fictional music-streaming company Zounds.
The winning team !
The winning team!
The groups debated the
present day issues that Zounds face and the greatest uncertainties, before creating
four future scenarios to test whether the company’s service has long-term
viability.
The four scenarios
Students were encouraged
to take a subjective view of the situation and to debate their different
perspectives, using a SITU analysis – an environment-scanning framework developed
by Warrick.
The groups’ SITU analysis notes
Students took a vote to determine which of the uncertainties
listed were the most potentially impactful for Zounds.
Voting for the most impactful uncertainties
They created consumer personas for Zounds’ service, who
served as protagonists in their scenario narratives.
Raoul Raj Naka Mura, a composite
customer persona
After designing proposals
to help Zounds innovate further, the groups used a storytelling toolkit,
borrowed from tried and tested Hollywood screenwriting techniques, to create
stories that explained Zounds’ predicament and persuasively articulated why
their innovation proposals should be taken forwards.
Scenes from a scenario narrative
Finally, the groups voted
for the idea they thought was most powerful.
The workshop gave students
an opportunity to put their creative- and critical-thinking abilities to the
test, and challenged them to take the initiative in a situation in which there
is no obvious right answer. As all good MBAs should, they responded to the
challenge, devising a range of innovation ideas and choosing a variety of
different ways to tell their engaging stories!
