Ideas need to be constantly renewed to maintain appeal – Max Mckeown, author, The Strategy Book

Product and service ideas go through a cycle that eventually lead to a decline. To make them consistently appealing to the buying public they have to be constantly adapted to shifting tastes and desires.

Some of the ways to do that are:

a. Change the form – Product can be tweaked the way mouth-washing brands have moved from gel to liquid; automobile from horse-drawn to 4-wheel drive and pistine engines, and now electric cars. These adaptation ensure the original idea keep tab with reality.

b. Add new ingredients – The mixture of products and services can be manipulated or extended to stay in touch with emerging lifestyles. Crayola crayons develop new colours almost every season. Seasoning cubes maker keep turning in fresh tastes; fast-food outlets such as Domino or Papa John do not stop extending their lines of fresh menus. Football ruling organizations keep experimenting with new rules and technology to bring the game up to modern standard.

When ideas are allowed to stay the same, they are overtaken by time. This is due to changing human desires. modern monk, Thomas Merton, captured this succinctly, “There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power”.

Human beings are programmed naturally to grow. Hence when a business fails to adapt its models, products and services will be outgrown by the consumers. And sooner, innovative new forms and formats will dump them out of the shelves and showrooms.

Consequently, concert organizers make sure they add new features every season. Automobile brands improve existing models. Phone and software makers develop upgrade.

Ideas need renewal to provide:

1. excitement
2. entertainment
3. enrichment

The market is always looking for these attributes to renew its obligation of keeping the wallet open.

Citing a painful misalignment, the author of The Strategy Book, Max Mckeown, revealed, “The founder of Dell found ways of delivering Hewlett Packard’s most profitable products for much lower prices but forgot to deliver their quality; so within a few years had fallen behind again”.

He summed it up: “Ideas need constant renewal. A great idea will never be perfect and will never work perfectly in all market and all seasons”.

If you are into business – whether in the fields of servicing or product manufacturing – check and ensure to do these:

• adapt product to new market based on observable uniqueness
• tweak form and features to generate new excitement
• find new ingredient or colours that enrich consumption
• Whatever it takes don’t stay the same year-in year-out