Big
Opportunities

The opportunity formula

Opportunity

Origin
1375-1425
Latin ob portu

Understanding Opportunity

Big Opportunities.

The word opportunity harkens back to a world of harbors and sailing vessels. Before the chug of an engine could power a boat to safe harbor, sailing ships had to sit outside of port waiting for the right wind and tide conditions to carry them and their wares to their destination. These conditions were called ob portu, Latin for “into port.” The perfect mix of tide and wind conditions came to be called opportunity.

Ask around today and many would say that the opportunity was the port itself—the market awaiting the goods—the people with unmet needs, wants, and desires creating demand for new products from distant lands. At the other side of the world, the maker of the goods that became cargo may have viewed the opportunity as the chance to invent something new, perhaps using a new technology to create superior goods, which in turn spurred new demand. The people of that time saw it differently. To them the opportunity was about the conditions that brought the cargo and the port together.

Opportunity Thinking® Principle

Leave out one of these and your ship won’t be coming in!

Big Opportunities - Ob Portu

This simple formula is the backbone of opportunity. All three must be present to have a strategic opportunity that will produce growth.

Opportunity =
Need + Value + Conditions

Big Opportunities - Opportunity = Need + Value + Conditions
O=N+V+C

NEED

The port in our story of Ob Portu represents the people with needs.

Today, we recognize that needs are critical to opportunity. Without a need there is no vacuum to fill, no place to grow. A need is something people require or want, even when they don’t know it. The plethora of apps available and the unexpected delight we find in many of them shows that we don’t always know what we might desire or enjoy. Nonetheless we classify these as needs.

VALUE

The value historically was the boat and its goods.

It was both the wares as well as the vehicle that gets those wares to the port. Real value goes beyond a single item – the idea – extending all the way back into the broad platforms of capability that created it. Opportunity will only exist when the ability to create value exists. That ability need not reside only in one organization – it can be the combination of advances made over time and across organizations that allow the ability to create the right value to emerge.

CONDITIONS

The conditions of the tide and wind were what brought the opportunity to fruition.

Now the tides that move us into opportunity are the conditions that govern whether or not we can bring the right value to meet the right needs. They include the economy, natural resources, market and competitive conditions, regulatory environment, labor markets, channel conditions, culture, and more. These are ever changing, just as the tide and wind change, causing one opportunity to stall and another to take off.

Leveraging Conditions

Opportunity is found in the changing conditions

The changing conditions — new headwinds and tailwinds — create opportunity. But which conditions should you watch?

Your organization and opportunities are a system made up of markets, functions that serve them and external factors. New opportunity is discovered when you look at change across all of these and their intersections.

Opportunity Thinking® Principle

Opportunity exists at the intersections

Big Opportunities - Changing Conditions
Watch EDU 104: Defining Strategic Opportunities
Opportunity Thinking Principle
Opportunity
Thinking®

Opportunity combines:

  • the needs of a receptive audience,
  • the capabilities to create value, and
  • the conditions that bring them together.

All three are required to achieve revenue

Opportunity Thinking Principle
Opportunity
Thinking®

Opportunity combines:

  • the needs of a receptive audience,
  • the capabilities to create value, and
  • the conditions that bring them together.

All three are required to achieve revenue

The originator of
Opportunity Thinking®

You can kill an IDEA... but you can’t kill an OPPORTUNITY!™

More about The book
You can kill and IDEA... but you can't kill an OPPORTUNITY!
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