Module 6•Unit 3 of 6•11 min

Progressive Foundations of Value

A single S-curve tells the story of one foundation of value. But great businesses do not ride one curve to its flat top and stop - they jump to a new, higher curve, and then another. Plotting each successive generation of an offering as its own S-curve reveals an ascending staircase of value over time. This is called Progressive Foundations of Value.

Each new foundation of value starts a new, higher S-curve. Progress is a staircase, not a single ramp.

Stretching curves vs. building curves

This gives us two fundamental innovation strategies, which we will meet again as Growth Pathways in Module 8:

Stretching the current S-curve

Extracting more value from the existing foundation - improving and applying it more broadly. Lower risk, smaller payoff. Essential, but finite.

Building a new S-curve

Creating a new foundation of value entirely. Higher risk, higher payoff. This is what secures long-term relevance and resilience.

The masters of progressive foundations begin building the next S-curve while the current one is still growing - so the new curve is ready to take over as the old one flattens. Waiting until the current curve is obviously exhausted leaves a dangerous gap (the subject of the next unit).

Discuss

Is your organisation mainly stretching its current S-curve, or also building the next one? When did you last start a genuinely new foundation of value?

Try this at work this week

Draw your own progressive-S-curve staircase: the foundation you rode in the past, the one you ride now, and the one you should be building next. If the third curve is blank, that is the most important gap in your strategy.

Sources

Global Innovation Institute (GInI), Foundations of Innovation body of knowledge.
Foster, R., Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage, 1986.
Christensen, C. & Raynor, M., The Innovator's Solution, 2003.

The S-Curve

The Innovation Window