The Hindu Business Line : `Think out-of-box to reinvent business'

But such methods have helped companies like sports shoemaker Nike to get into a highly lucrative accessories' business while bike maker Harley Davidson has ensured that its customers explore newer terrains.

When Nike, GE, which wanted to add $13 billion every year to its topline and Harley Davidson hired US-based Jump Associates, little did they expect that they would enter into industries, which they knew nothing about earlier but would end up making money.

Reinventing

"Companies are always looking at reinventing themselves because their core business keeps getting more competition," says Mr Dev Patnaik, who founded Jump Associates.

Nike for example, found out that its core business of selling sports shoes wasn't enough to keep the company going. On the findings of Jump Associates, it ventured into sports accessories while GE wanted to get into plastic fibre business but did not know how to go about it. Jump hand-held the company to find its way through the textile industry.

"It saved them $1 million in the first year itself while their break even period was reduced to three years from five," points out Mr Patnaik.

New opportunities

Harley Davidson now offers travel services for its customers after it hired Jump to find newer opportunities to do business.

But in this case it had to be something innovative and not the routine travel package, which most travel sites offer to their customers. "While most travel sites try to remove any surprises so that customers have a glitch-free holiday, in the case of Harley Davidson the travel package was designed to make customers encounter the unexpected," Mr Patnaik said.

Mr Patnaik regularly hires professionals who can think out-of-the-box, particularly those who bring multiple skill sets to the table. "They are trained to notice what others don't," says the founder of Jump.

He and his team are currently in India to set up an office here, apart from trying to find new businesses. "Some of the IT companies are pretty excited about the kind of work we do. The problem is finding the right talent from India. There is a huge talent pool here but everyone is trained to be specialists. And we want to hire the oddball," says Mr Patnaik.