UNEXPECTED AND CONTRADICTORY EVENTS RESEARCH
References: Vicari Salvatore, La creatività dell’impresa, Etas Libri, Milano, 1998
Class: A
Phases: External Mapping
Application field: Strategic Planning, Product Development
Assumptions: This technique has no requirements.
Pros: Users develop a critical ability in order to notice all the “imperfections” that are present in
their company’s market.
Cons: The author does not suggest steps for finding out opportunities but gives a general treatment
of his technique, suitable for any function in the firm.
Description:
The subject of this technique is market analysis, in order to realize ongoing changes. Users have to
look for what is considered “imperfect” in the market. Imperfections in some way may become
good opportunities from other points of view and strong potential advantages.
Imperfection, being lack of something, distance from something, restlessness, incompleteness, if viewed
dynamically is never total, is never all or nothing, but becomes opportunity for change, movement, research,
improving boost. [Varvelli, 1995, p.18]
The aim of this technique is to detect inconsistencies, imperfections of markets which make them
evolve over time. The most important indicators in order to understand changes are two:
1. the Unexpected;
2. the Contradiction.
1. The Unexpected:
Every event which is not foreseen, or is not part of the normal evolution curve of a certain trend, masks the
opportunity for innovation. [Vicari, 1998, p.195]
From this assumption we may understand that a deep event analysis enables to perceive new
demands and trends. When we face unexpected events we know that something happened wich
deeply modified past trends. From these discontinuities we may get innovation understood as a new
combination of not yet modified elements.
Example
Honda started selling high-powered motorbikes on the US market. Soon they acknowledged their mistake and
turned to mopeds and won over 60% market share in very few years. The unexpected element was that everywhere
the three Japanese managers went in order to explore US market opportunities, they found out that people were
more interested to the mopeds the managers themselves where using than to the high-powered motorbikes they
were trying to sell. Their mistake was to think they could compete with American motorcycle industry on the same
ground where it was stronger. Anyway, chance had a hand in the matter: the skill of the Japanese management was
to use a fortuitous event (that is, riding mopeds for personal use) and completely modify the initial strategy,
according to the new situation created by chance. They turned into selling small mopeds which had great success.
[Vicari, 1998]
1. The Contradiction
Contradiction can be defined as an incoherence between phenomena which, according to our own
knowledge and perspective, should be suitable instead.
Contradiction is a precious source of innovation for two reasons:
 every contradiction suddenly rising conceals the necessity of an adjustment;
 contradictions are the result of a single point of view. [Vicari, 1998]
In the first case the contradiction rising inside a system can be interpreted as a suggestion that good
functioning may be compromised if the system is not modified. Contradictions which show
themselves as events not consistent to expectations, say that the system may be running correctly if
malfunctions are handled in good time.
Example
Contradiction is the rise in hospitalization costs following a surgical operation. The improvement in public health
should bring about a general cost reduction, not a rise. On the contrary, surgical costs go on growing (because of
new technologies used in operations). A solution to this ‘contradiction’ (improvement in public health and rise in
medical costs) was the development of day surgery, that is surgery which needs no hospitalization for patients and
brings about substantial cost reduction. [Vicari, 1998]
The presence of contradictions in a systems shows that remedy and innovation are needed in order
to take the system back to good functioning.
In the second case, contradiction is meant as the result of a given point of view. Connecting the
opposites, making consistent in real terms what seems inconsistent, is the meaning of creativity.
The author asserts that contraposition between opposite elements does not really exist in real world,
or rather it is function of a single point of view. But there is at least one other point which enables
the viewer to see two phenomena as wholly compatible, even though still different and conflictual.