The UNITE Strategy-Execution Framework: Where To Innovate & Where To Cut Costs.
This ground-breaking framework helps you understand where to innovate and where to cut costs. It further helps you connect your strategy to your business objectives and your IT, thus aligning all critical business areas.
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Stefan F. Dieffenbacher
Founder & CEO
Working with some of the largest global companies in the world, Stefan is a highly recognized industry thought leader in innovation & transformation.
Caroline Hüttinger
Partner Brand & Experience Design
Caroline is a veteran brand & experience leader who’s led design experience with some of the most respected brands in the marketplace.
Susanne M. Zaninelli
Partner Culture Change
Susanne is a leading authority in the field of culture change. She has led organizational change projects for key players across the world.
Dr. Andreas Rein
Partner for Organizational Development
Andreas Rein is a C-Level sparring partner and organizational development agent supporting organizations from strategy to agile execution.
Sascha Martini
Partner for Innovation & Digital Transformation
Sascha is a world class innovation & digital transformation leader with a human centered approach. Ex-R/GA & razorfish CEO.
Adam D. Wisniewski
Partner for IT Strategy & Business Alignment
Adam is a seasoned transformation and digitization expert. He led major programs at the intersection of IT and business for international organizations
Patrick Zimmermann
Associate Partner Brand & Experience Design
Patrick Zimmermann is an experience and design strategist with a long-standing track-record from firms such as IDEO, Publicis and Sapient.
Proudly developed & shared by
Stefan F. Dieffenbacher
Founder & CEO
Working with some of the largest global companies in the world, Stefan is a highly recognized industry thought leader in innovation & transformation.
Douglas Lines
Corporate Executive
A deal-making expert having led significant M&A transactions; business leader having built and led significant H1 and H2 businesses with portfolio values above £8bn; innovator who likes to re-imagine the world we live in having successfully launched a global EdTech.
What the download contains
- The UNITE Strategy-Execution framework: Where to innovate & where to cut costs
- Brief instructions addressing your non-core, core and differentiating areas
- Overview of the entire UNITE Business Model Framework, which helps you understand the role of business modelling in context
Helps you understand where to cut costs and where to innovate
Drives alignment of Strategy, Business & IT
Provides clear guidelines to determine and prioritze cost and investment principles
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Richard Cobie, CEO
Reviewed on 15 July 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as a purchase, worth the investment!
I completely re-evaluated the role of innovation in business growth: before reading this book I have to admit I thought it only entailed product new features and technologies enhancements, while now I see it has everything to do with meeting customer needs and uncovering a business USP, which automatically translates in sales! Could not recommend it more!
Janette Lavalier, Innovation Professor and Consultant
Reviewed on 15 July 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as a purchase, worth the investment!
Unlike most business innovation books I read over the last years (and even decades) when reading How to create innovation you immediately understand the authors have been there, innovating and transforming some of the world's most amazing brands. Great work!
Karl Meckel, Change Development Manager
Reviewed on 18 July 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as a purchase, worth the investment!
Not only this book offers the most comprehensive innovation and business change overview but it really helps you take the next step, driving you step by step from theory to practice (also with super useful background notes and driving questions)
Franz Hellstrom, Head of Culture
Reviewed on 2 Aug 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as a purchase, worth the investment!
I really enjoyed the whole book, but mostly the culture chapter, mainly because I always failed to acknowledge its major role in favouring or inhibiting business growth. Loved the graphics that helped connect all the dots in a visually appealing (and way easier) way.
Satoru Fukuda, Chief Strategy Officer
Reviewed on 13 Aug 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as a purchase, worth the investment!
We’been willing to innovate our business for some years now, but then we always got stuck before we even started, because basically we had no idea where to start…This book helped us do just that: find the right starting point with guiding questions and an incredibly comprehensive innovation overview.
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Why we use it
Most organizations do not understand what is non-core, core or differentiating in their business.
This understanding is critical, since it drives key questions such as where to apply cost-cutting and where to innovate. Further, understanding whether something is core or not will help you understand which strategy to use and how to reach business and IT alignment.
This understanding is critical, since it drives key questions such as where to apply cost-cutting and where to innovate. Further, understanding whether something is core or not will help you understand which strategy to use and how to reach business and IT alignment.
How It Works
The framework provides an overview of the non-core, core, and differentiating aspects of a business and connects them to matching Business Objectives, Business Strategies and IT strategies. You can see that as the differentiation potential increases, the strategic importance of the area increases, and decisions are driven by the desire to increase the value of your product. In the non-core areas, the strategic importance is lower, and these are places that you can cut costs through standardization, automation, and outsourcing.
The core activities are where you are going head-to-head with your competition, so clearly you want to maintain the ability to compete. At the same time, these activities are not adding to your competitive advantage, so you want as much as possible to keep costs down here so that you can invest resources in differentiating activities.
Typically, 80% of a business is non-core. Even if an activity refers to a key aspect of the business, like logistics or manufacturing, if you are not doing anything radically different than your competitors, this is not contributing to your differentiation. As such, the best strategy is to apply standard practices to optimize efficiency and reduce costs.
Your differentiating areas, which are typically about 5% of your business, are what set you apart and allow you to charge premium prices. You should seek to become best in class in these activities and continue to develop your differentiation through innovation both in your product and in your Business Model.
What is the goal of the model?
Strategy-Business-IT alignment and resource efficiency. As markets and mindsets change, it is not always clear what parts of your business are key to its success. It is important to consider all of the aspects of your Business Model to understand what is truly critical to your differentiation (and should be invested in) and what is not (and should be economized).
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Stefan F. Dieffenbacher
Founder & Managing Director of Digital Leadership
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