Apply lean startup thinking and tools to help a ballistics fiber leader move into new market adjacencies
Challenge: Where else can we grow if our core ballistics markets might face headwinds?
Impact: Business launched in outdoor apparel space with customer launches (links below)
Situation: Here was a leader in the ballistics protection space, however the industry was potentially facing headwinds. How does one move into new spaces in the vast engineered textiles market to offset any headwinds and diversify? The team faced several challenges.
- Engineered Textiles are a broad space with several hundred areas of application. Where could we play, where could we win?
- These were brand new markets and spaces that we knew very little about. E.g. High performance outdoor apparel
- The team had little experience with a clear approach to systematically zone in from a broad space to tangible business opportunities quickly
Approach: A ‘market attack’ approach was needed where a focused cross functional team could quickly hypothesize and evaluate opportunities for business viability
- Developed a framework where we used criteria like strength of unmet need, capabilities needed, market access to evaluate 10-12 application areas within the Technical Textiles space
- Team down-selected to 3-4 areas after which we zoned in on willingness to pay premiums for ‘performance’ such as ultra ‘lightweightedness’ and high strength
- After rapid assessments the team zone in on the high performance outdoor apparel, shoes and accessories space.
- We then used a combination of tools like lead user research, business model concepting and physical prototyping to figure out willingness to pay, capabilities needed to win in these markets
- The overarching approach through all these rapid opportunity assessments was zoning and focusing limited resources in on the most critical assumptions to test. ‘what has to prove to be true’ – a discovery driven planning approach
Impact: By definition and application of a structured approach to this fuzzy front end of innovation in 3 months the team was able to go from a broad market to specific applications
- Strong pipeline of customers for this new business
- Ingredient standalone brand launched (website)
- Several initial wins and pipeline of new applications in high performance outdoor apparel and accessories (e.g. Theft proof Industrial Grade Backpack (featured on Shark Tank) Knox Motorcycling Industrial Strength Jeans, The North Face Lightweight Mountain Suit, NW Alpine High Strength Climbing Apparel, Kinis Minimalist ‘Barefoot’ footwear)
- This process was then further tailored and leveraged across all new market development projects