N-of-8 vision workshops: benchmarking business cases of other visionary companies

I’ve had many opportunities to facilitate the medical brand vision workshops.  In one I particularly enjoyed, our objective was to create viable 3-year “vision scenarios” for a portfolio of products. The focus was on a successful brand launch as a key short-term goal, while simultaneously managing the lifecycle of an older brand, accelerating a bread-and-butter brand’s growth, and preparing for a successful follow-on product launch.

The cross-functional team was first given an overview of the improved market conditions and expanded manufacturing capacity. This allowed us to engage everyone to imagine a “different world” and create excitement in thinking about a brand-driven market.

Then, we introduced several historical examples of vision that changed perceptions.  These included the Manhattan Project, Black Mountain College arts school, the Apollo space mission, and Disney’s animation studio and Epcot Center.

The main element of the meeting was benchmarking business cases of visionary companies to demonstrate how to imagine a different world.  The cases were divided into three groups:

1.  New World Shapers         
     - eBay
     - Medtronic
     - iPod/iPhone

2.  Lifestyle/Experience Creators
     - Harley-Davidson
     - Starbucks

3.  Category Killers
     - Best Buy
     - Home Depot

Using these cases as a start, three breakout groups applied similar vision to our portfolio. We asked, “What if...we pursuing a strategy like….(brand)?”  What new ideas would that generate in the areas of:  new processes or steps, sales & marketing programs, market research insights, customer relationships, expert practice leadership, and contingency plans.

We also applied a rough SWOT analysis to the vision scenarios to assess our ability to win (and why), the size of opportunity (volume and/or $), growth potential, and stronger overall brand positioning.