Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Opportunity recognition — Sources of Opportunities
Where business opportunities come from, from Drucker's seven sources to Schumpeter, Kirzner and the role of prior knowledge.
Try 3 questions
1. A product meant for teenagers sells mostly to retirees. Which source of opportunity did Drucker call the least risky yet most neglected?
- New knowledge
- The unexpected
- Demographics
Show the answer
Answer: The unexpected
Drucker argued unexpected successes and failures are the cheapest signals of a changing market, yet managers often dismiss them because they contradict plans.
2. Shipping lines built faster ships, yet costs stayed high because ships sat idle in port. Drucker's category for this gap?
- Process need
- Change in perception
- Incongruity
Show the answer
Answer: Incongruity
An incongruity is a mismatch between assumed and actual reality; recognizing that cost lay in port time, not at sea, opened the way to container shipping.
3. A single weak step slows an otherwise efficient surgical procedure, and a firm develops a product to fix just that step. Which Drucker source?
- Incongruity
- Change in industry structure
- Process need
Show the answer
Answer: Process need
A process need is a missing or weak link in an existing process; the opportunity is well-defined because users already know exactly what is lacking.
The whole quiz comes before your apps
BrainTok asks a few questions like these before the apps you choose open, so your screen time turns into learning. For iPhone.
Join the beta