Innovation Adjacencies
Finding adjacent market spaces is an attractive way to grow. Adjacent markets are not too far away from your core business in terms of channels, technology, price point, brand, etc. Adjacent means: lying near, neighboring, having a common border, touchable. Although chasing adjacencies can be distracting, it is a much easier to sell internally. Adjacencies seem more achievable than far out, ethereal white space opportunities.
Adjacent markets are even more appealing when you apply a systematic innovation method to it. Giving yourself the gift of novelty in a new market space right next to your own seems like the best of both worlds. The trick is finding the right adjacencies.
The starting point for thinking about adjacencies is to ask yourself, “Adjacent to what?” It is much harder to find adjacent spaces when you don’t have a clear understanding of your existing spaces. For this, I recommend a framework called The Big Picture developed by Professor Christie Nordhielm at The University of Michigan. The Big Picture outlines four quadrants that, when properly constructed, completely define any market category. Here is a visual of those quadrants.