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Publications

Publications

The Outthinker team of researchers and analysts aims to dig deep beneath the surface to find underlying trends and patterns others cannot see. See below for bestselling books, white papers, articles, and blog posts we have produced. Stay up-to-date with our latest thinking by following the weekly Outthinker Blog or subscribing to our newsletter.

White Papers:

Design a Disruptive Business Model that Disrupts your Competition… Not your Company

To create something of truly transformative potential, passionate action-oriented intrapreneurs must design a business model that is “strategically disruptive”

Unlocking Value Through Intrapreneurship

Contrary to commonly accepted dogma, incumbent organizations are the drivers behind the innovations that have most impacted our world.

How Outperformers Outthink the Competition

Leading companies have radically disrupted their industries by seeing things differently and acting differently to outpace the competition.

A Manual for Outthinking the Competition

How to apply the Rapid-Cycle Strategy Innovation Process to respond to challenges quickly and creatively.

Building Creative Strategies with Patterns

An explanation of Outthinker’s approach to strategy and innovation.

Seven Surprise Openings for a Strategic Game

Logic tends to hide from view a set of initial openings that win the early stages of the strategic game and effectively catch your competition off guard.

Books Published

Driving Innovation from Within

Driving Innovation from Within is a practical and inspiring guide to leadership at all levels for those who want the fulfillment of changing the world without leaving their job in order to do it. Conventional business wisdom tells us that entrepreneurs are society’s main source of innovation, but in reality, many of the modern world’s most impactful creations were invented by passionate employee innovators from within organizations. Distilling more than 150 interviews with internal innovators and leading experts along with insights from the latest research and today’s most successful companies, strategist and advisor Kaihan Krippendorff lays out a step-by-step playbook to overcome barriers and unlock innovation from the inside.

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Outthink the Competition

“Outthinkers” are entrepreneurs and corporate leaders with a new playbook. They see opportunities others ignore, challenge dogma others accept as truth, rally resources others cannot influence, and unleash new strategies that disrupt their markets. Outthink the Competition proves that business competition is undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift and that during such revolutions, Outthinkers beat traditionalists.

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Hide A Dagger Behind A Smile

Today’s global economy is a battleground. To survive and thrive, you’ll need every weapon you can get. Microsoft, Sony, and Starbucks use business practices based on the ancient Chinese military text The 36 Stratagems – now you can, too.

Weaving the story of each strategy with contemporary case studies from top business and strategic management schools, each chapter analyzes a company’s situation, options, decisions and results. “Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile” is a timely and timeless resource for executives and corporate strategists looking to win their most contentious battles.

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The Way of Innovation

Inside The Way of Innovation, corporate strategist Kaihan Krippendorff explains how you can adapt and thrive by recognizing, understanding, and utilizing the ancient Asian approach to innovation. He illustrates how companies like Microsoft and Nokia use this powerful wisdom, and how you too can master the five elements of change to reinvent your products, services, and organization.

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The Art of the Advantage

Contrary to commonly held beliefs, strength and resources play minor roles in a company’s ability to beat the competition. Instead, the ability to conceive of unorthodox strategies that the competition will choose not to copy is the key to gaining a competitive edge. The Art of the Advantage shows that the fundamental patterns that successful companies have used to outmaneuver their rivals are rooted in a set of ancient Chinese warfare metaphors known as The 36 Stratagems. “The Art of the Advantage” marries these ancient principles with modern application through graphical depictions, ancient examples, and modern case studies. More than a traditional business book, this is a manual for systematically outthinking the competition.

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Leverage
Point
“8Ps” of StrategyOpportunity
for Disruption
Recommended Leverage Points
Position- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting.

- The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.
3- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market
segments that you previously thought unreachable?

- What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).
Product- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers.

- The technology you develop for producing those products.
8- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use?

- What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and
production?

- How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable
land?

- What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?
Promotion- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries.
- How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.
8- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it?
- How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?
PriceHow consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.7- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?
Placement- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.9- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire?
- How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat?
- How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more
accessible to customers/agile supply chain?
- Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?
Physical
Experience
- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer.
- How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.
9- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness
scale?
- Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs?
- What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your
customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?
Processes- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.8- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste?
- How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.?
- What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?
People- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision?
- How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)?
- How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?
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