Outward bound

A look at the Scaling phase of the Business Design process

Note: The following is the fourth in a four-part series detailing the phases of NEXT’s Business Design process, which takes teams of innovators from an initial insight to a fully-fledged business case.

The Scaling phase of the Business Design process focuses on bringing a value proposition to life by crafting both a business and delivery model, as well as an action plan. Scaling is designed to allow innovation teams to use the necessary dimensions required for building a business in order to strengthen the value proposition they explored, crafted, and tested during the Sensing, Visioning, and Prototyping phases.

Teams will first solidify the viability and feasibility of their value proposition, before taking the necessary steps to ensure its scalability and impact, potentially inducing changes in revenue streams, costs — even the solution itself.

Bare it all

A few of the notable Scaling phase Design Tasks are:

1. Show Me The Money — Explores the economic viability and impact of the concept.
2. Touchdown — Touch down on the right user delivery model, the required organization, and the next steps.
3. Who Else But Us — Teams identify their competitive advantage by identifying the differentiating resources and capabilities of their organization.
4. Go to Market — Teams describe their go-to-market and communication strategy
5. Build, Borrow or Buy — Teams determine their deployment model based on an assessment of their internal capabilities and resources and decide whether to build, borrow or buy the solution.

Completing the Design Tasks in Scaling will help teams finalize their business case. The key elements of Business Canvas the team will work on are Delivery, Economic Model, Competitive Advantage, Resources and Plan.

Judgement day

The end of the Scaling phase is a decision — move into the Implementing stage (which is part of the innovation process, but not part of the Business Design process), pivot (iterate/work more), or kill the project entirely and start from scratch.

Because of the innovation process — and simultaneous involvement of stakeholders throughout — the act of “killing” a project at the end of Scaling should never — or at most very rarely — occur. Nevertheless, it is an option open to NEXT users, should the situation call for it.

Contributing editor: Adam Kohut