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Strategic Fire Drill
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John Sutherland, President Ennova, Inc.

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John SutherlandJohn Sutherland is a creator of systems, methodologies, approaches, techniques and programs, all with one purpose in mind; help companies escape commoditization by rapidly leveraging and scaling their unique value in a risk-reduced way.

John has over 30 years experience in developing new businesses and consulting with companies on how to unleash the revenue and profit potential that exists within their firm. Since 1994 John has facilitated hundreds of market creation/differentiation workshops to Senior Management in grocery/retail, furniture, manufacturing, telecommunications, publishing, financial services, travel, office-equipment, property management, health care, IT, energy, and pharmaceuticals industries.

A former facilitator at the Xerox International Training Center in Leesburg Virginia John has pioneered the use of many thought provoking customer-centric innovation techniques to generate breakthrough ideas. These techniques include: customer experience walking, changing behaviour via 3 Do’s, 5C criteria for business development, benefit hierarchies, frictionless growth, naturally embedded value, and idea markets.

To complement his idea generating techniques, his most recent creation is The Own Your Future ProgramTM. Through the power of common language and visualization this program empowers leadership teams to:

  1. See more clearly, and with greater insight, where the future is headed.
  2. Determine faster and with greater precision, how to best create new value offerings to exploit that future.
  3. More quickly establish a shared understanding with crucial people of the business changes required to capitalize on that vision.
  4. Implement faster the resultant business change with less risk and greater rewards.

John earned his M.B.A. at the Richard Ivey School of Business and also received a B.Sc. from McGill University. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada where he skis, runs marathons, plays saxophone, flies and enjoys playing with his grandson.  You can read his latest thoughts on differentiation at http://blog.ennova.ca.

Education and Certifications:

Bachelor of Science, McGill University
Master of Business Administration, Richard Ivey School of Business

Professional and Community Affiliations:

Member of the Markham Concert Band
Member of the Argonotes Band
Past Chairman of The Friends of Markham Music

www.ennova.ca

Read Articles by John Sutherland

Recent articles

  What Can an Entrepreneur Learn from Google Nexus?

Share Our PassionBy John Sutherland, President, Ennova, Inc.
 
While Google’s Nexus is hot, the question is: “will it be a game changing device”?  Will it disrupt the Smart Phone industry by bringing in new capabilities that sweep away the incumbents?

Read More...
  Will Apple’s iPad Value-Disrupt The Market?
By John Sutherland, President, Ennova, Inc.

There’s been much negative press about Apple’s launch of the iPad.  Some commentators have focused on the product’s name.  Yet others have lamented the lack of features: no multitasking, no video, no touch keyboard, to name just a few.

Missing The Point

But they’re missing the point about creating new market spaces. New market spaces evolve when you allow new behaviors to emerge in a target population.  Specifically, if what you offer (the market disruptor) allows people to do something they couldn’t do previously, and if many people want to do it, then it takes off.

Read More...
  What Exactly Creates Value?
By John Sutherland, President, Ennova, Inc.
 

Factors Defining Value Creation

Recently I’ve written about how Behavior Space predicts new product or service successes.  This article uses a recent announcement by FORD to drill down into value creation by uncovering the role Relationship Space plays.  As you’ll see, size of relationship space determines new product success.

Ford recently announced an agreement with Microsoft to incorporate its Hohm technology into Ford’s new Electric Vehicle.  As an article in Fast Company explains

“. . .the home energy management service will be integrated into the Ford Focus Electric in 2011, another unnamed hybrid in 2012, and a third, yet unnamed hybrid in 2013. Hohm will assist drivers in figuring out the best time to juice up their vehicles based on when electricity rates are lowest. The service might indicate, for example, that electricity is cheapest between midnight and 6 a.m. on a certain day–a potentially money-saving piece of data. In addition to saving drivers cash, the feature will also hopefully help utilities reduce consumption during times of heavy stress on the electric grid.”

In previous articles I’ve written about how new behavior space helps create value, specifically, I’ve written about the Apple iPad, and the Google Nexus.  The concept I introduced was how a new product or service creates value by allowing new behaviors to emerge with the product or service only as good as the new behaviors it enables the user to express.

Well, that’s not entirely correct.  New behavior space is simply a stepping stone to where value is actually created.

Read More...
  Value Disruption: Super Bowl Advertising is Now a Commodity!
By John Sutherland, President, Ennova, Inc.
 
It’s been reported multiple times that Pepsi would not be advertising in this year’s NFL Super Bowl.  Examining why provides a lesson in value disruption and differentiation in marketing.

Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl. According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which spent $216 million.
 
Instead, the nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing its marketing dollars into the “Pepsi Refresh Project” as its main vehicle for the brand. The project will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to “refresh” communities.  A website was created where people can list their projects, which could range from helping feed the hungry, to teaching children to read. People can then vote to determine which projects receive money.

But there is more going on here than  saving money.   When you unpack this story you reveal a truth about differentiation and the power of value-disruption.

Read More...