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The DAVAR™ Grid
Here’s a way of keeping your business fresh and alive. In just 15 minutes the DAVAR Grid will give you a new perspective of your business. Use it by entering all past innovations you can recall. This quickly shows where you have kept fresh, and where things are getting a bit stale. Once you have completed the grid for the past, go one step more and fill in the future. This can be done using some competitor analysis, idea creation, and market planning.
Here’s an example, for an ice cream manufacturer...
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Product
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Price
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Place
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Promotion
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Process
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Next Year
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This Year
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Chef Range
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Started IDEA creation process
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1 Year Ago
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Cheesecake flavours
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Restaurant Chain
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2 Years Ago
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Organic Range
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Computerised Booking System
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3 Years Ago
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Summer Fruit
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Inflationary Increase
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4 Years Ago
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Low calorie range
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Independent Traders
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First Trade Show
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Fast Freeze
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Example DAVAR™ Grid
Click here for your own blank grid (PDF)
A quick look at the grid shows 12 cells filled, and 13 empty. So that’s 13 innovation chances missed. The grid lets you see potential gaps very quickly. In the example, the ice cream company has emphasised innovation through product development (that column is full). It may be that the industry demands new products, however the places for selling these products have not changed. Too few of the right people are getting to know about these fantastic flavours.
This year things will change. After completing the grid, the company are learning about creative brainstorming and generating more, and better, ideas.
Continuing with this example, here are some ideas for the company to complete next year:
Product: Reduce the product range.
Price: Readjust pricing to fit their premium image.
Place: Consider joint venture with top-brand supermarket lines.
Promotion: Get publicity from celebrity chef endorsement.
Process: Resolve to update the DAVAR grid every six months.
The objective of the grid is to keep fresh ideas in all the key business areas. If conditions require, you can also decide not to fill in one of the future grid squares.
Every business has it’s own timing cycle, and the grid can easily be changed to show weeks, months, or seasons. The columns can be customised to other business parameters, or for a personal lifestyle review. Choose your own DAta VARiables: for example in a personal life plan you could substitute product, price, place etc., with relationships, health, family etc.
Click for blank grid
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