The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking

STRETCHING

into new spaces

Netherlands-based multinational DSM started out in 1902 as a state-owned coal-mining business. Indeed, the company’s name stands for “Dutch State Mines.” But over the decades, the organization began to stretch away from mining into fertilizers and other businesses, and by the early 1970s DSM had completely transformed itself into a chemicals company. Then, in the 1990s, DSM reinvented itself again, this time selling off almost all of its commodity chemicals activities and moving into material sciences (particularly engineering plastics)⁷⁶ and life sciences (biotech products). Today, the company is a global leader in the field of health, nutrition, and materials, with annual revenues of $12 billion,⁷⁷ serving a diverse range of markets from food flavors and fragrances to furniture, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and construction.

Or consider Tesco, the UK retail titan. Founder Jack Cohen started out in 1919 with a simple barrow selling fish paste in the streets of London. The first Tesco grocery store opened in 1929, and by the 1950s and 1960s it had established itself as one of Britain’s leading self-service supermarket chains. But unlike some rivals, which focused almost exclusively on their core business of selling groceries, Tesco began to stretch into new opportunities by diversifying into all kinds of different Tesco-branded goods and services—from clothes and consumer electronics to fuel, financial services, telecom and broadband Internet, DVD rental, ...