Identification of New Business Fields and Development Directions Using Contradictions

Anticipating changes in the environment, identifying relevant trends and deriving potential consequences are the main tasks of the foresight process. The results of such an environment screening can be interpreted to explore/ exploit new business fields. As there was no systematic procedure available, the systematic approach which TRIZ is known for has been adopted for the foresight process.Trends in the environment of a company which are covering usually several market sectors and which are characterized by new technologies are defined as new business fields. A development direction specifies the implementation of a function or places the focus on certain components within a business field.Because of the different starting points two TRIZ-based procedures combining extrapolative and retropolative methods have been developed.The extrapolative approach of deriving new business fields contains a combination of TRIZ and foresight methods, which assist in deriving requirements. The interactions between requirements are analyzed, and contradictions are formulated. Overcoming the contradictions is embodied in future-oriented business fields. This approach is combined with retropolative methods.For deriving new directions of development it is fundamentally possible to start from existing business fields by adopting the procedural structure prepared for business fields. The other possibility is to start in a solution space. For this option standard TRIZ tools get combined.The key statement in the procedural strategy developed is that new business fields and development directions can be identified through overcoming mutually contradictory needs.