Currently, three out of five start-ups fail on the African continent because of their inability to identify trend-driven opportunity spaces in which to address unmet consumer needs. She says many start-ups are replicas of existing concepts instead of having a unique, relevant, trend-driven differentiator that holds value and is scalable within an African context.
Currently, Africa has six of the world's fastest growing economies and the growth of its middle class is outpacing the rest the world. "This provides fertile ground for the creation of new product concepts, services and experiences based on African trends to address unmet needs of the emerging African consumer", says Merle.
Using a state-of-the-art, cloud-based technology platform, Lacuna is building an African trends radar to support a trend-based approach to innovation across Africa's 54 countries. Lacuna Radar is an innovation management software developed in Germany that tracks and analyses trends across geographic and sector fields to support identification of opportunity spaces. It is an enabler of innovation within a client context; used to support Front End innovation for Lacuna's clients such as Porsche, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Distell.
By applying Lacuna's innovation software in Africa and combining this with its Front End Innovation methodology, more local innovators will be able to successfully turn a trend into something profitable. "Such a game-changer would enhance the success rate of African start-ups and corporate entrepreneurs," says Merle.
Lacuna is recognized as one of the world's leading innovation firms. In 2015, it is sponsoring and speaking at global innovation events such as the Foresight and Trends Conference in Los Angeles, the Innovation Roundtable in Copenhagen and the World Innovation Convention in Berlin. It opened an office in Cape Town, South Africa in 2013 to provide trends, insight and innovation commercial expertise in Africa. Today, the Cape team includes 18 specialist trend researchers, analysts, innovation management consultants and a futurist.
As part of the Open Design Festival underway in Cape Town, Lacuna will host two events to share its expertise with the local market on Saturday 22 August 2015, at the Watershed of the V&A Waterfront.
Lacuna's Founder and CEO Klaus Schnurr will speak at 1pm on his unique methodology for helping brands use trends to create opportunity space portfolios filled with innovative concepts. Entitled, "From trends to front end innovation in Africa", Klaus will present case studies and demonstrate the Lacuna Radar software.
To register, follow the link.
At 3pm, Merle will share insights into best practice for African innovators. She will provide feedback from the International Development Design Summit (IDDS D'Kar) held with MIT-DLab and IDIN, the International Development and Innovation Network - in Botswana during 4 and 6 August. She is the only South African member of IDIN.
To register, follow the link
Says Merle, "Innovation expertise is a driver of economic growth. At South Africa's current stage of economic development, its ability to create and leverage intellectual property will determine the extent to which it leapfrogs into the knowledge economy".
