RED TEAM EXERCISES:
In the world of innovation, Red Teaming describes a process of representing the opposition or competition. Becoming your own adversary in a strategic way is often one of the best forms of offense.
Red team exercises take on many forms, but typically involve acting as if you are the competition attempting to take market share, work around your IP, or otherwise effect your business. These exercises often uncover hidden opportunities as well as hidden vulnerabilities in time to repair them or create additional defenses.
IP WORKAROUND:
This strategy involves acting as a direct competitor who is trying to get around your existing IP or processes. The advantage of doing this internally is that we have your understanding of your market sector, consumer preferences, and sales factors, in addition to a deep understanding of your existing IP and IP strategy. We then utilize a variety of innovation strategies to create new IP so that your business can own it as an offensive or defensive hedge.
Depending on the type of product or service being built, our team uses fundamental criteria to take the problem or need back to the user level. By understanding the actual need being addressed, new ways of addressing those needs become apparent. These novel solutions often have significant cost savings or margin enhancements over your current approach.
Seeing the world from different directions is why working with a company like ours can be your secret weapon. We bring our diverse skills and knowledge to work on your hardest problems. Our solutions often come from unrelated industries, creating new IP that both delights and surprises.
We also look to purchase or license any IP that is currently owned by others, with the potential to obfuscate who the end licensee is during that process. The IP your enterprise may need may be underutilized in a different market sector.
INTERNAL RED TEAM:
Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, you may want to consider setting up a competitor from within your own ranks. There are several ways this type of effort creates value while revitalizing the creativity that got your business to where it is now.
Internal Red Teams look to disrupt some or all of your current market share. They do so by either sharing resources with the current model, or by developing all new assets. The freedom in this approach allows your employees to utilize their deep knowledge while attempting to address the needs of customers you are currently under serving or have lost in the past.
From an outsider’s perspective, this type of innovation may look like a startup with no relation to the larger enterprise. It is also possible to use this type of work to intentionally disrupt the current departmental structure of your enterprise to revitalize underperforming business units.
EXTERNAL RED TEAM:
In the world of information security, external red teams are a common practice. These external teams seek to understand and disrupt your existing attack surface, finding vulnerabilities, and reporting their findings back to your internal teams. These same techniques can be applied to innovation, IP creation, and market approach.
An internally launched, external Red Team involves having a specific group of employees act as informants to a wholly externally lead startup. This can involve a short period of information and data sharing or an ongoing relationship of mutual co-development. Depending on the nature and structure of your business, you will need to ensure the obligations to shareholders are maintained. This type of incubation is a way of going after market share that is currently underserved or unavailable to the original enterprise.
It is likely your existing team already has ideas on how they would serve your clients differently if they had to rebuild. Engaging IP Development Partners in this effort may unlock all of this hidden potential.