What makes business model innovation so important is that it captures how your business creates value and helps differentiate from your competitors.
The ones that are able to
- rethink their current way of doing business
- find new revenue streams
- constantly ensure that their value proposition answers to the actual needs of their customers,
have better chances at not only staying in the business but to become more profitable and keep growing their businesses.
Sustainable differentiation through business model innovation
Business model innovation is about revolutionizing your industry and shaping the future. It starts with identifying customer needs and finding innovative methods to address them.
In many industries, multiple companies are moving in the same direction and could well end up with similar business models and reduced profits as a result. However, moving toward a unique business model within your industry can hold out promise for much longer-lasting sources of competitive advantage as it allows you to respond to changing needs of the industry and your customers more effectively.
Different business models respond to the needs of slightly different customer segments and thus help create a superior competitive position. When combined with the unique competencies, skills and structures of the organization, it is very difficult for traditional operators to compete with you.
Differentiation based on a unique competency will last longer, until competitors match that competency or find a substitute. Thus, it’s important to constantly keep looking for new opportunities to create unique business models.
Case Viima: Democratizing Innovation at Scale by Providing Freemium Software
We at Viima operate in the innovation management software industry and have decided to approach business model innovation differently compared to the more “traditional” vendors, which often treat innovation as just another IT project.
The more traditional tools often support a single innovation process or use case and although the solution may work very well for that specific case, these types of projects often require a fair amount of consultation and customization. This does not only make the implementation project more expensive, but it also takes more time.
In reality, innovation is unpredictable. No matter what type of innovation work you’re engaging in, your success depends on the ability to adapt and make quick adjustments in an uncertain environment.
Not all companies have established innovation practices and fixed processes and only a few benefit from the traditional way of doing things. Although vendors should be able to constantly evolve, some are no longer able to keep up with and respond to the rapidly changing needs of the modern world.
We at Viima have realized from the start that the innovation management tool needs to be:
- flexible
- easy to use
- suitable for multiple processes
- customized without our help
Expensive isn’t always better
We’re constantly getting feedback from our existing and potential customers and partners regarding our freemium business model. Viima’s unique offering is that it’s completely free for up to 50 users after which additional users can be added with only $3 a month.
Although freemium offering isn’t necessarily anything new, this pricing model makes Viima a clear market leader in the innovation management software field as it challenges the somewhat rigid and old-fashioned logic of more traditional software vendors.
Unlike others, we want to make sure users can verify that the tool is providing them with actual value before having to pay for it.
Our mission at the core of our business model
Since Viima launched in 2015, we’ve built a reputation for helping ambitious companies looking to improve to scale their innovation efforts. We’ve worked closely with companies across numerous verticals, including several category leaders.
This experience has allowed us to develop a very unique insight into the challenges and drivers of innovation in companies ranging all the way from startups to Fortune 500.
We’ve learned that top performers are agile and move fast by innovating at scale across all parts and levels of the organization. They are not afraid to question their existing business models and they understand that a single traditional R&D process as lone source of innovation is no longer enough.
Thus, they are willing to build their ecosystems and business models from scratch and have a systematic approach to innovation.
To innovate at scale in today’s fast moving, connected and dynamic world, organizations need the right tools and practices regardless of where they currently are. Most companies are ill-prepared (or even completely unprepared) for these changes and are at serious risk of being left behind.
Thus, we want to help each and every one of those companies by challenging the general notion of how innovation is done in an organization by offering the best tool in the market at an affordable price. Every company can fully experience the value of the tool without having to rely solely on our stories.
Traditional operating models in the industry would not allow to provide such a great customer value and agile tools for our customers. Because of our business model, our small team can help a large number of firms to scale their innovation efforts.
“Our mission at Viima is to democratize innovation at scale, thus helping organizations all over the world and provide everyone with the opportunity to make more innovation happen. “
Get started
Business model innovation doesn’t always have to revolve around new technology. The idea is rather to test the limits and have the courage and ability to question existing notions and practices.
We believe that there shouldn’t be any barriers to access the tools that will transform the way organizations innovate now and in the future. The future shapers and change makers are already busy innovating at scale and you definitely want to be among the winners.
Viima works with you and scales with you across every step of the innovation process. As already mentioned, it’s forever free for up to 50 users, so If you want to see how it works in practice, you should give it a go!
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