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LearnFoundations of Innovation
Module 4•Unit 4 of 6•11 min

The Ten Types of Innovation

To make the forms of innovation practical, the firm Doblin developed the Ten Types of Innovation - a framework that maps the full range of places a business can innovate.[1] Its central message is provocative: most companies pour their effort into just one type (the product), while the biggest, most defensible innovations usually combine several types at once.

The ten types, in three groups

Configuration - the inner workings of the business
1. Profit Model

How you make money

2. Network

Connections with others to create value

3. Structure

How you organise talent and assets

4. Process

How you do your work

Offering - the core product/service
5. Product Performance

Distinguishing features and function

6. Product System

Complementary products and platforms

Experience - customer-facing elements
7. Service

Support and enhancements around the offer

8. Channel

How your offering reaches customers

9. Brand

How you represent your offering and business

10. Customer Engagement

How you foster connection and interaction

Doblin's research found that innovations combining more types tend to be more successful and far harder to copy. A rival can clone your product feature (one type) overnight; cloning an integrated combination of profit model, channel, service, and engagement is enormously difficult. Apple, for example, wins by combining many types.
Discuss

Across the ten types, where does your organisation concentrate its innovation - and which types has it barely touched? Which neglected type could unlock the most?

Try this at work this week
Score your organisation's innovation activity across all ten types (0-3 each). The empty and low-scoring types are your untapped opportunity space - pick one and generate three ideas within it this week.

Sources

  1. Keeley, L., Pikkel, R., Quinn, B. & Walters, H., Ten Types of Innovation (Doblin), 2013.
  2. Doblin / Deloitte, "Ten Types of Innovation" framework materials.
  3. Sawhney, Wolcott & Arroniz, "The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate", MIT SMR, 2006.
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