Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

346 BRAND RELEVANCE
biases against the risky new venture that go beyond economic
analysis. The organization will often reject a proposed new
offering just as a body will reject a transmitted organ: it recognizes
that it is foreign, that it does not belong. This reaction
will often occur even in the face of an expressed need for the
organization to develop new growth platforms that will be
the lifeblood of the future. There are several organizational
issues or “ curses ” that champions of innovative new offerings
need to recognize and counter in some way.
One issue might be called the “ stick - to - your - knitting curse ”
or the curse of commitment to a core business. Successful incumbent
fi rms focus on their core businesses, investing vigorously
in incremental innovation to reduce costs, improve the offering,
and satisfy their loyal customers. As a result:
• They are so focused that they fail to see opportunities even
when they are obvious.
• If there is any chance that the new business will cannibalize
the core business, the new business will have a natural,
powerful enemy. Why invest in an offering that may kill the
golden goose?
• The capabilities of the core business tend to be applied to
whatever new business comes along, even if that is a recipe
for failure. Intel ’ s Craig Barrett called its microprocessor
business the creosote bush, after a desert plant that poisons
the ground around it to prevent other plants from growing,
because of this phenomenon. Out of some fourteen ventures
started during the 1990s at Intel, the only one that really
paid off, Intel Capital, involved investments but no operating
responsibility which means that Intel was unable to
move beyond its basic business model. 11
Then there is the “ curse of success. ” When times are good
and the business is doing well, resources should be available to
take risks and create new business areas. Curiously, however,