Developing New Business Ideas

Publisher's acknowledgements Authors' acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: The importance of developing strong ideas * James Dyson - using the idea development process to clean up * Demystifying the idea development process * Slaying the myth that entrepreneurs are born, not made * The four steps in the idea development process * And another thing: benefits of the idea development process * Call in the cavalry or do it yourself? * Sir Clive Sinclair and the C5 the perils of a flawed process of idea development Chapter 2: Applying creativity to the idea development process * Phil Knight and NIKE combining logic and intuition into record-breaking success * Why is creativity a must? * Reconnect with your creativity * Creativity and the idea development process * Mastering whole-brain thinking * Ingvar Kamprad using logic and intuition to break the mould with IKEA Chapter 3: Step One - seeking and shaping opportunities * Amazon.com shaping the internet opportunity * Don't rush to headlong action * Give yourself time to develop alternatives * Treat your first business idea as purely tentative * Total immersion in the market * Fact-finding * Tools for seeking and shaping opportunities * Moving to Step Two acknowledging Catch-22 * Iridium the imperfect solution to an opportunity which never existed? Chapter 4: Step Two generating new ideas * Howard Head an analogical approach to business success * Eureka? * The Mind Gym: six mental workouts and their related routines * Ground-rules for productive mental workouts * Mental Workout One - Checklists * Mental Workout Two - Stimulus materials * Mental Workout Three - Combinations * Mental Workout Four Free-association * Mental Workout Five - Analogical thinking * Mental Workout Six Upside-down thinking * Moving to Step Three * Thomas Alva Edison idea generator par excellence Chapter 5: Step Three - evaluating and selecting ideas * Karan Bilimoria: brewing the criteria to achieve the big one * Evaluation allows development,

Mary Bragg worked in marketing with GlaxoSmithKline, before undertaking management consultancy with PricewaterhouseCoopers, both in the UK and internationally. Her professional qualifications include a Masters Degree from London University. She combines independent management consultancy with a university career as Principal Lecturer on entrepreneurship and creativity. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Mary was a founding trustee of the Academy of Enterprise. Her earlier book, Re-inventing Influence, won the Management Consultancies' Association award for best management book of the year in 1996. Andrew Bragg's wide-ranging business career includes general management and marketing roles in the UK and mainland Europe across commercial and not-for-profit sectors. His chief executive roles have covered the multimedia, print and packaging sectors and have involved a number of entrepreneurial start-ups. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Andrew also gained an MBA from Cranfield University.