Mapping the Future in Uncertain Times.PDF

Rotman Magazine Winter 2010 / 41
MAPPINGTHE
FUTURE IN
UNCERTAINTIMES
ON PAPER, ROB MCEWEN WAS AN UNLIKELY CHAIRMAN and CEO for
Canadian mining company Goldcorp, Inc. With a background in
ﬁnance, the small, soft-spoken man with the neatly-trimmed
moustache preferred meticulous tailoring to industrial machinery.
But despite his appearance, McEwen was a prospector at heart: he
had a fascination with gold and grew up hearing tales from his
father about miners, prospectors and grubstakes at the dinner
table. So smitten was he with the industry that he hammered out
his own template for what he thought a 21st-century gold-mining
company should look like, despite never having worked for one. In
1989, he made the leap, stepping into a takeover and becoming
majority owner of under-performing Goldcorp.
Some called him crazy for buying what was regarded as a rust
bucket of a company. At the time, the gold market was depressed;
the mine’s operating costs were inﬂated and the miners were per-
petually on strike. McEwen even received a death threat; but he
Opportunity Maps can help leaders make choices about what to do
and what not to do, charting a path for future growth.
by Alonzo Canada
This document is authorized for use only by Alonzo Canada (alonzocanada@gmail.com). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.

42 / Rotman Magazine Winter 2010
stuck with it, because he believed the business had a promising
future. “The Red Lake gold district had two operating gold mines
and 13 former mines that had produced more than 18 million
ounces combined,” he once said. “The mine next door had pro-
duced about 10 million ounces; ours produced only 3 million.”
McEwen believed that the high-grade ore that ran through the
neighboring mine was present in parts of the 55,000-acres he
owned – if only he could find it.
To turn around his dream company, he needed to find new
sources of value within his existing business. He had to make some
very big decisions about where to dig, and he couldn’t afford to be
wrong. Inspiration struck him one day at an MIT seminar, where
he learned about open-source code, wide collaboration and the
story of the increasingly-popular Linux operating system. McEwen
realized that if he could attract world-class talent to the problem of
finding more gold in Red Lake, they could potentially transform
Goldcorp’s geological data to reveal the most promising places to
dig. He didn’t need to get lucky: he needed new ways to see where
value was hiding on his property.
The rest, of course, is history. McEwen launched the Goldcorp
Challenge in March 2000, splaying the company’s proprietary geo-
logical data to the world. More than 14,000 scientists, engineers
and geologists from 50 different countries downloaded the data for
virtual exploration. The winner of the contest was a collaboration
by two groups in Australia, Fractal Graphics and Taylor Wall &
Associates, which together developed a powerful 3D graphical
depiction of the mine. Goldcorp drilled four of their top five tar-
gets and struck gold on all four. This new way of looking at the
business laid the foundation for McEwen to restructure Goldcorp,
increasing its market capitalization from $50 million to more than
$13 billion and growing its share price at a 40 per cent compound
annual growth rate.
When McEwen bought Goldcorp, it was failing largely because
it was unable to see where true value resided on its property. Its
existing maps were insufficient, because they simply articulated
previously-made discoveries, which had obvious limitations. As
Albert Einstein once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In
order to renew growth at Goldcorp, McEwen needed a fundamen-
tally-different way of seeing the world. His approach of pooling
experts to solve his problem is widely celebrated as a benefit of
using an ‘open innovation approach’. Less-often discussed is the
output from Fractal and Taylor Wall: the team crunched, reconsti-
tuted and synthesized mountains of geologic data into a
wholly-new map that revealed promising new mining targets. In
short, they created a map focused on finding value, rather than on
verifying existing data, and in the process, they helped McEwen
make savvy bets on the future growth of his company.
Mapping in Uncertain Territory
Though few executives outside of the mining industry actively dig
to find new growth for their business, virtually every company’s
future depends on pursuing bold new ideas with an uncertain pay-
back. Just as Goldcorp couldn’t grow until McEwen redrew his
existing maps, leaders seeking growth must look beyond what is
commonly known to reinvent their core business, develop adjacen-
cies and target ‘white space’ opportunities. They need to see the
world differently than their competitors by reframing their market
landscape to discover previously-hidden opportunities; and, they
need a differentiated strategy with a roadmap on how to target
those opportunities over time.
At JumpAssociates, we are often asked to help executives cre-
ate new businesses or reinvent existing ones. Such challenges are
inherently unpredictable: it is simply impossible to guess what the
next big business will be. In response, companies take a variety of
approaches to pursuing organic growth. Some take pains to avoid
pioneering new categories, waiting for competitors to validate that
an idea has legs; others become hopelessly incremental, creating
new products and services only if they are clear extensions of exist-
ing lines. More cavalier companies simply launch as many new
things as they can, waiting for something to stick.
We have found that the best way to manage the inherent uncer-
tainty of innovation is to take a page from McEwen’s book and look
beyond the existing data to find out where value truly resides for
your business. One of the most effective methods for doing this is
to create an Opportunity Map – a visual representation of a busi-
ness landscape that guides future strategy by synthesizing met and
unmet consumer needs, emerging discontinuities such as cultural
and technology trends, both direct and indirect competitive activ-
ity, and internal and external competitive competencies. Synthe-
sizing all of this data helps innovation teams separate the handful
of opportunities that they should target from the dozens they
shouldn’t. In short, it helps managers make better decisions – both
in larger questions of long-term growth strategy and on more
short-term concerns about whether a new product category is
worth entering.
It’s useful to think of an Opportunity Map as a book with chap-
ters: each chapter is a layer of data on the map that visually and
verbally articulates a larger narrative about what’s important to a
firm, its customers and its short- and long-term growth opportuni-
ties. While there are no hard-and-fast rules for how many data
layers to include or which kinds of data are most important in an
Opportunity Map, we have found a few to be particularly useful.
1. Begin with a foundational framework
Start with a ‘foundational framework’ that defines the boundaries
and fundamental dynamics of your firm’s business landscape.

Spatially map opportunity spaces as ‘islands in an ocean.’ Next, cre-
ate a layer that captures existing and potential solutions, future
technology trends, direct and indirect competitive offerings, and
analogous points of view within the landscape. To see beyond
technology and the competition, consider creating a layer formed
of descriptions of consumer needs, behaviour and activities. Finally,
your map will be most actionable if you add a layer that captures,
plots, and contextualizes the central firm’s capabilities and existing
and future initiatives.
The structure and dimensions of the foundational framework
define the boundaries and describe the forces that shape a land-
scape, embodying a point of view about what is important to a firm
and its customers by emphasizing customer needs and market cat-
egories that are relevant and excluding those that aren’t. Such
spatial plotting of opportunities also allows a firm to see the rela-
tionships between opportunities and more effectively ascertain
their promise. Unlike an atlas, this is not a map of the world. For
example, if a firm were making an Opportunity Map for business
travel, it may or may not include hotels, luggage or airlines. These
choices depend on what type of business your company is in.
2. Develop thick descriptions
Without any underlying thinking, opportunity mapping risks
becoming an exercise in graphic design. To avert this, accompany
the foundational framework and its opportunities with ‘thick
descriptions’ that synthesize what the data means. Thick descrip-
tions is a term coined by cultural anthropologist Clifford Gertz,
who said that in order for human behaviour to make sense to an
outside observer, a thick description is necessary to explain not
just how people act but the context for their behaviour. Each oppor-
tunity on the map should include thick descriptions that synthesize
consumer needs, existing competitive and analogous solutions,
consumer behaviours, cultural trends, technology trends and com-
petitive activity. Just as each opportunity area is spatially plotted
on the map, the contextual data is plotted as well, providing fur-
ther detail about commonalties and interrelationships.
3. Perform strategic evaluation
Good data alone does not make for a useful opportunity map; it is
just as important to layer in key strategic criteria. After all, there is
no such thing as a universally-ideal opportunity. Getting into digi-
tal music players and distribution in 2001 turned out to be a bril-
liant move for Apple, but it would have been a disaster for
Honeywell. In order to properly assess their potential, opportuni-
ties must be evaluated on firm-specific criteria such as brand fit,
strategic alignment, barriers to entry, strength of need, competitive
activity, use of leverageable assets and existing capabilities. Similarly,
it’s important to understand where on the map the direct competi-
tion will play, both in the short term and in the long term. This isn’t
just about the competition’s current and future offerings, but also
their brands, messaging, marketplace positions and key activity sys-
tems that might give them advantages. This continued layering of
data can clarify how a firm can best compete, making certain to play
to its own strengths – and not those of its competitors.
Reframing your landscape
Successful Opportunity Maps reframe the landscape, turning the
assumptions and expectations of a given market on their heads and
enabling an organization to follow a clear, differentiated approach.
Areframe is much more than an insight or an interesting nugget of
data: it constitutes a fundamental shift in thinking about how the
world works by not only shedding light on a situation but invalidat-
ing previous models.Armed with the right reframe, companies can
discover new value in almost any market.
The discount retail sector provides an example. This industry
has long been focused on living up to its name by selling cheap stuff.
Wal-Mart has become the largest company on earth by finding
ways to drive out cost in everything it sells, building a competitive
advantage that no one can match – though that hasn’t stopped
other retailers like K-Mart from trying, much to their peril. The
only large discount retailer that has responded effectively to the
rise of Wal-Mart is Target, and the reason for this is quite simple:
Target is the only company that has a fundamentally different view
SUCCESSFUL OPPORTUNITYMAPS
REFRAME THE LANDSCAPE,
TURNING THE ASSUMPTIONS
AND EXPECTATIONS OF A GIVEN
MARKET ON THEIR HEADS.

44 / Rotman Magazine Winter 2010
of discount retail thanWal-Mart’s. Despite its broad appeal,Target
views its business through the lens of one very important person, a
single ‘ideal guest:’ she’s a 35-year-old suburban mom with two kids
who needs to look out for value but aspires to give her family much
more than what a rock-bottom price might offer. EverythingTarget
does seeks to delight this woman, from its house-branded products
to the design of its stores to the vendors whose stuff it puts on
shelves, which together constitutes a reframing of the market.
Wal-Mart has won by saying people should get what they buy at
the lowest possible price;Target has managed to find its own way to
thrive by saying that although low prices are important, discount
retail is actually about getting more out of everyday household
goods than mere functionality. That’s a very different view of the
industry – and one as hard to copy asWal-Mart’s legendary efficiency,
because it plays to Target’s core strengths in marketing, design and
trend spotting.
Bridging Needs and Solutions
Economics is governed by the principles of supply and demand.
Innovation is also governed by fundamental laws, but very differ-
ent ones: needs and solutions. Let’s say you’re looking for ways to
improve store efficiency, and you observe that a clerk is having
trouble getting boxes from a high shelf. You might conclude that
he needs a ladder, but a ladder is merely one of many possible solu-
tions to his need to reach the boxes.You could also lower the shelf,
raise the floor, give him flying shoes, or encourage him to grow a
few inches, to name but a few. Reaching a box is a need; a ladder is
a solution. Significantly, needs outlive solutions. Therefore, when
considering the long-term potential of the market, it is critical to
understand both the needs you’re serving and the solutions that
will be profitable and viable today and in the future. For this very
reason, a good Opportunity Map accounts for present-day solu-
tions while also grounding concepts for future development in
needs that will persist over time.
At a recent corporate retreat for the venerable venture capital
firm Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers, partner Bill Joy present-
ed what he called ‘the map of grand challenges’. This chart of
multi-colored squares tracked the firm’s progress in identifying and
investing in key categories of green energy technologies, including
transportation, energy efficiency, electricity generation, energy
storage and more. These were the existing solutions that met cur-
rent needs for sustainable energy. Joy also left blank spots on this
chart that hinted at new technologies that should be possible in the
near future. These spots were the needs that current solutions
could not yet meet.
Because Joy’s map synthesized both needs and solutions, it has
come to represent a rough conceptual outline for the future clean
energy economy.The firm now uses this map as its playbook, invest-
inginpromisingstart-upswithnascentsolutionsandstimulatinguni-
versitiesandlaboratoriestocreatenewtechnologiesinordertomeet
criticalunmetneeds.Basically,ifyourgreen-techideacouldsolveone
oftheblankchallengesonKleiner’smap,they’reinterestedintalking
to you; if not, it’s a much harder pitch for their investment.
Defining Both the Island and the ‘X’
What good is a treasure map with no X on it? It’s about as useful
as a piece of paper that has an X on it but no drawing of the sur-
rounding island. Good Opportunity Maps include both ‘fields of
interest’ (large possible areas for investment and development) and
points (specific ideas for offerings and businesses.) This not only
provides an overview of the realm of possibilities, it highlights
where to concentrate efforts for the greatest return.
For decades now, it has been apparent that clean technology
and alternative energy had the potential to become remarkably
lucrative fields. BP made its first investments in solar energy in 1973,
but the promised ‘big green ship’ still hasn’t come in. The last half-
century is, instead, littered with the detritus of countless ambitious
projects that promised to propel the economy and save the earth at
the same time. Forty years later, breakthroughs are still in short
supply. How could this be? Perhaps the answer is that past green-
technology efforts have been too broad and too ambitious.
Companies have had maps that show them the islands where a
green economy might one day be built, but they don’t have the Xs
marking the spots where treasure is buried.
GE has been one of a very small handful of large corporations
that has driven measurable growth through its investments in
green technologies and alternative energy generation, and it has
done so remarkably quickly. In 2005, the company announced
Ecomagination, a major initiative to tackle the big challenges of
sustainability that have vexed so many others. But GE didn’t mere-
ly declare that it was going to the island of green technology. CEO
Jeff Immelt very carefully noted the specific targets most appro-
priate to his organization’s strengths and capabilities. Specifically,
he started with efficient lighting (literally the company’s founding
business), hybrid locomotives, lower-emission aircraft engines, and
highly-efficient wind turbines. Following this targeted approach
within the vast landscape of environmental possibility, GE has rap-
idly realized returns from its Ecomagination investments. By next
year, after just five years, it expects those efforts will constitute
more than $20 billion in revenue, nearly 15 per cent of the entire
company’s contributions. By creating a map containing both the
islands and the Xs, GE has turned the perpetual money sink of
going green into, well, green.
Defining Your True Competition
Executives often live in fear of being blindsided by their competi-

Alonzo Canada is a principal at Jump Associates, a leading
growth strategy firm based in San Mateo, California. In addition
to consulting with executives at a variety of S&P 500 companies,
he teaches design methods at Stanford University.
tion. Unfortunately, many traditional strategic frameworks are
inadequate to anticipate possible game-changers, in large part
because they focus heavily on existing activities. It is doubtful that
anyone applying Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model to the pas-
senger rail industry circa 1874 could have guessed that their most
threatening substitutes would turn out to be automobiles and fly-
ing machines. Opportunity Maps, by contrast, synthesize a wide
variety of data on both current and future activity, making them
particularly effective at identifying potential moves from incum-
bents and new entrants. Moreover, a focus on needs and cultural
phenomena means that seemingly unrelated competitors aren’t
missed.This knowledge can lead a team to discover unique insights
about how it might best address such competitive threats through
direct competitive moves or strategic partnerships.
Several years ago, the Explore team at Nike was given the man-
datetohelpthelargerorganizationbecomenotjustashoecompany,
but a sports company.The team met the challenge by creating a map
to identify its most promising opportunities, defining a strategy for
growthandsettingfirststepstowardafuturevision.Theteamascer-
tained opportunities beyond shoes, like sunglasses, watches, MP3
players and sports apparel. The data on their Opportunity Map
included consumer needs, societal and technology trends, and their
usual competitive set of Puma, Adidas and Reebok. To maximize
the map’s utility, however, the team also considered indirect com-
petitors like MTV, who had a competing opinion about what kids
should do after school: Nike wants you playing sports, and MTV
wants you to sit in front of the tube. Because the team also looked at
indirect competing points of view, their work led Nike to consider
opportunities that it might have otherwise overlooked, such as new
partnerships that marry sports and digital entertainment, including
the wildly successful Nike+iPod platform.
Charting a Path to a Better Future
Long-term opportunities are seductive. After all, they’re bigger
bets, which means that they carry significantly greater potential
rewards than ideas with a closer horizon. Of course, this also means
that they carry far greater risks, cost more to develop, and don’t
show results for a longer period of time than most organizations
find acceptable. As such, it’s rarely a good idea to focus exclusively
on far-out new ventures, just as it’s a bad idea to pursue only the
opportunities that are easiest for your organization to develop
given existing strengths and capabilities.
Successful Opportunity Maps don’t just help companies see
which opportunity areas they should develop, they allow them to
set a clear, phased path from the current state of affairs to a new
long-term strategic position. This is one advantage to making a
visual map – it literally depicts far-off opportunities as being fur-
ther away from your current position. Moreover, it shows how
success in a few key near-term opportunity areas can set you up to
get the most out of more audacious long-term goals.
The San Diego Zoo recently took on several initiatives to
explore new opportunities for growth.Working closely with Jump,
the Zoo defined more than a dozen new opportunities that would
potentially strengthen its business model while increasing its
impact as a global conservation and education leader. Some of
these were extremely ‘close in’, such as using the Zoo as a showcase
for sustainable technologies and leveraging the Zoo’s unique skills
to provide consulting and research services in the emerging field of
Biomimicry. These were made immediate priorities, and the Zoo
began executing upon them virtually from the day the project
ended. But promising as they were, these close-in ideas did not, on
their own, constitute a strategic vision for Zoo’s future. Instead,
they are territory to immediately expand into before stepping
toward more ambitious opportunities that would be nearly impos-
sible to develop today.
Rather than leaping to the biggest prizes, Opportunity Maps
create a clear sense of priority and a set order for development.
With a good map, an organization can get a clear sense of why it is
going after certain ideas today, and why it is ignoring dozens of
other interesting ideas.
In closing
Any way you slice it, charting a path to a better future is an act of
faith. Rob McEwen had a hunch that there was hidden value on
Goldcorp’s Red Lake property, and Fractal Graphics and Taylor
Wall &Associates remodeled the existing data and redrew the map
to discover where to dig. Like McEwen, leaders must navigate
uncertainty by following the courage of their convictions about
what is best for their company and the customers it serves.
Forging such conviction can be challenging when sifting
through the tangle of choices pertaining to a firm’s future
prospects, but Opportunity Maps can help leaders navigate this
complexity as they chart a path to future growth for their company.
Ultimately, hunches must be substantiated and insights discovered
so that the organization is clear about why it chooses to do some
things and not others – the very essence of strategy.

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