What To Learn From Blyk.com: The New Free Mobile Network

you are aware that is not really innovative, right ?

I tend to agree with Jason as innovation is not about talking about a product or a methodology. It is about producing innovation.

Hi Jason, Blyk is indeed not brand-new as a start-up, but the geographic expansion is an important step and illustration of the success of its free business model. The strategic change to partnering with existing providers interested in the concept (like Vodafone) is important to note as well. The discussion about what is innovative and not has many aspects to it. Maria, it is true that putting a great idea into practice/on the market is a very valuable part of the overall innovation process, but the ideation part as such is important as well. I often compare it with sales: building the relationship and closing the sales is extremely important, but without continuous lead generation and qualification at the front end of the funnel your pipeline will dry up. Considering its disruptive potential, studying business model innovations in different industries is an important aspect in the front end of innovation.

Taking the 80/20 rule of innovation into consideration, merchandising remains 20% of the innovative effort. Whereas 80% is consumed by effort of the development team.

But it is hilarious to see how big words only comes from this 20% and everyone forgets the real innovation in terms of science and technology. I work for TSMC and everyday I hear the same talk from people who want to partner with us.

Hello,

Maria referred this site to me, and we were discussing about this during last year’s Intel conference. I spent some time reading the blog posts on this site and I had to admit that Maria and I share the same views.

It is surprising to see that any initiative is now being considered as innovative, but in really it replicates an idea already deployed by another company. The word “free” however is subjective. Read Richard Stallman’s views about “free”.

At Intel, we call this type of innovation : The Eric Raymond’s rant due to Eric’s cross postings skills to destroy fast software development techniques.

Maria, the 20% of “merchandising” that you describe is at the very end of the innovation process, whereas ideation/competition analysis/industry business model mapping is at the front-end. I agree with you about science and technology innovation which is complementary and often enables new business models to be set up (f.e. internet). IBM’s Global CEO Study 2006 as well as the Business 2010 report underlined that business model innovation creates significant competitive advantage over product and process innovation.

Low-cost airlines, P2P banking, Skype, pay-what-you-want music, free books… Where companies used to have the same business model and compete on having a better product for example, in more and more industries companies are competing with different business models now. What a start-up (like BLyk) does in Telecom now, can happen in other industries within a few years – which makes it important to track new business models in and outside your industry. This is the overall context of the business model database and the visual 10 block approach that we are building.

http://www.boardofinnovation.com/2009/03/19/how-to-build-any-business-model-with-only-10-blocks/

Gerold, innovation is a buzzword, misused in many cases. When a company copies a new business model from another industry, in my view (case per case) it can still be innovative in the way that business model innovation usually requires significant organisational transformation, possible canibalisation of existing business, and can still disrupt its industry. You can argue about Blyk (UK) as Virgin Mobile (US) already applied a similar strategy, but not basing a complete mobile service on this business model. Interesting debate, thanks for the feedback.

Hi you all,

I found the business model of Blyk to be very interesting and innovating. We at tagger.fm are seeking new ways to bridge the consumer’s interests and the offering of our partners (music & brands).

Blyk is pioneering and I think we can learn from it.