Unlocking opportunities for growth - Alexander B. van Putten

Ron Pierantozzi, Ph.D., CEO of PPT Research and Former Director, Business Development, Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.

A Breakthrough Approach to Investing in Business Innovation

Most companies analyze investments using tools that bias them against real innovation and lead them to avoid their best opportunities. This book introduces a breakthrough alternative: Opportunity Engineering.

Drawing upon recent advances in financial analysis, but without requiring a lot of math, the authors show how to engineer the risk out of uncertain opportunities so you can pursue more high-payoff innovations. You'll learn how to escape from the "go/no-go vise" and implement more flexible decision-making that considers all the business alternatives, models, and opportunities associated with each project. You'll learn how to systematically structure high-potential projects to limit downside exposure and boost your potential upside.

The authors show how to define the scope of investment opportunities, identify key drivers of potential profits, document assumptions, design out major risks, and tease out key challenges and vulnerabilities.

Using these techniques, you can escape the mindset that limits you to low-impact innovations and begin pursuing serious growth opportunities--and make business uncertainty work for you, not against you.

Why companies avoid their best opportunities for innovation

Getting past risk-averse analysis that snuffs out experimentation and innovation

Systematically engineering your opportunities

Capturing the upside, slicing out the downside

Beyond rigid "go/no-go" decisions

How flexible, staged innovation creates more opportunities for delivering value

Constructing an engineered growth portfolio of innovation investments

Optimizing your mix of core-enhancing investments and high potential "long shots"