Posts By: John Bessant

New cases added

Some new cases about start-up entrepreneurs   Brighton Beard Company Espresso Mushroom Company Aquapax Greats Sneakers

Case study – Espresso Mushroom Company

A Case Study on the Espresso Mushroom Company A gourmet mushroom growing company fuelled by waste coffee grounds; If one didn’t know that this start-up was based in Brighton, (the home of the UK’s first Green Party MP and notoriously eco-minded), they could pretty well make the assumption. But the Espresso Mushroom Company is much

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Greats – start-up case study in the sneaker industry

‘It’s ok to buy status, just don’t overpay’ – A Case Study on Greats Whether they are developing a new product for an established company, or starting a business completely from scratch, the first step on any entrepreneur’s journey is finding an opportunity. For many of the most innovative entrepreneurs, this step is characterised by

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Aquapax case study

A Case Study on Aquapax For a product concept that began amidst a culture of religious fervour, as seventeenth century pilgrims bottled water from religious wells to take home as holy relics, the public perception of bottled water has undergone a dramatic transformation since its origin. It sits now in an increasingly politicised context, as

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New cases added

You can find a new case study of a small start-up – the Brighton Beard Company – here.

Unipart’s approach to improving productivity

May 13, 2015 : FT industry editor Peggy Hollinger talks to John Neill, chief executive of Unipart, about the logistics group’s methods for improving productivity, including a ‘university’ and ‘faculties on the floor’ for continuous training and monitoring.

Activity – Sources of innovation

Activity: Sources of innovation   Where do innovations come from? Use the chapter in the book on ‘Sources of innovation’ to give you some ideas. Try and generate a list to populate the table below with examples.     Source of innovation Examples R&D laboratories New drugs in pharmaceutical industry Market research New or improved

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Deep dive – Open and user led innovation – OUI

The innovation landscape has changed profoundly in the past decade and there is now considerable emphasis on opening up to new sources of knowledge and to the ideas of users in particular.  In this report you can find an overview of some of these key trends and the emerging properties which they offer. Open_Collective_Innovation

Ethnography

Ethnography   One of the problems with market research is that asking people questions about their preferences, wishes and needs may not give the full picture. For many reasons people often say something different to how they actually behave. For this reason a useful addition to the market research toolkit is ethnography. This is a

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