Developing New Business Ideas: A step-by-step guide to creating new business ideas worth backing (Financial Times Series) - Softcover

Mary Bragg; Andrew Bragg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0273663259 ISBN 13: 9780273663256

Publisher: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall, 2005

Synopsis

"... the vast numbers of books devoted to the subject... have done little to improve the situation... Andrew and Mary Bragg's Developing New Business Ideas might just be the book to change much of this...  If this book can help investors and would-be entrepreneurs in this area it will do not just them, but also the economy as a whole a great service."    Roger Trapp, Independent on Sunday

"Developing New Business Ideasis a truly original book, with a fabulous blend of lessons and inspiring real business stories. Most importantly, it demonstrates in a practical and easy to understand manner how to put creativity and innovation into action." - Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, founder and Chief Executive, Cobra Beer

At some time in their life, almost everyone in business has an idea for a new enterprise.

The idea might be sparked by dissatisfaction with an existing product, experiencing something new while traveling or simply finding that nobody in the market is serving your particular need.  The idea could be for a new venture for your business to launch, or for new business of your own.  But most ideas remain just that: ideas.

We struggle to develop them, wondering if they will work, why nobody has already thought of them and how we could ever turn them into a profitable reality.

How do you take a promising thought and develop it into an enterprise worth backing?

That is the question that this book sets out to answer.  In Developing New Business Ideas, Andrew and Mary Bragg provide a practical guide to creating, shaping, evaluating, refining and implementing new business ideas.

The book demonstrates that it is within absolutely everybody’s power to take the first germ of a business idea and to systematically creatively challenge and commercially develop that idea into a viable business opportunity.  Using a practical four-step creative process, Developing New Business Ideas offers a wide-range of hands-on, how-to-actually-do-it techniques to help you add value and viability to your original idea.  It will also introduce you to the experiences of a range of today’s successful entrepreneurs, enabling you to learn from the creative lessons that they learned as they built their businesses.

Supported by its own set of online tools, Developing New Business Ideas is an imaginative and interactive companion to converting creativity into successful enterprise.

"Having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into successful reality.  By detailing four structured steps to developing saleable products or services from that first idea, this excellent and imaginative guide significantly simplifies that task.  Essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs".

Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the clockwork radio.

 

About this title

Review

"... the vast numbers of books devoted to the subject... have done little to improve the situation... Andrew and Mary Bragg's Developing New Business Ideas might just be the book to change much of this...  If this book can help investors and would-be entrepreneurs in this area it will do not just them, but also the economy as a whole a great service."    Roger Trapp, Independent on Sunday

 

"Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of business – the embodiment of an idea’s potential.

But too many ideas – and too many companies – flounder and fail because they are not developed properly. You might have an idea that will change the marketplace forever, but it is no more than a dream or a fantasy if you cannot make it work.

 

The Braggs’ book shows how to take that first naked idea, that aspiration, and shape it into a form that can be successfully put into action. They show clearly how creativity can and should be applied to every single stage of the idea development process, and use a helpful step by step process to help you turn your idea into entrepreneurial reality.

 

Developing New Business Ideasis a truly original book with a fabulous blend of lessons and inspiring real business stories. Most importantly, it demonstrates in a practical and easy to understand manner how to put creativity and innovation into action."

 

Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, founder and Chief Executive, Cobra Beer

 

"Having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into successful reality. By detailing four structured steps to developing saleable products or services from that first idea, this excellent and imaginative guide significantly simplifies that task. Essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs."
Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the clockwork radio

"Andrew and Mary Bragg have assembled a fascinating and formidable cast of entrepreneurial thought-masters to demonstrate the power of their own effective and crystal-clear principles of idea generation, development and implementation - lessons that anyone can exploit. Their book is a wonderful read which is a powerful idea - or rather set of interlinked ideas - in itself. Read, enjoy, learn, do - and profit."
Robert Heller, management writer and founding editor ofManagement Today

"If you are eager to leave the corporate rat-race for an entrepreneurial journey, the Braggs' Chapter Four is your ticket out. Thanks to this book, finding a viable new business idea just got easier."

Professor John Mullins, London Business School, author of The New Business Road Test

"Developing New Business Ideas forges a unique and powerful link between creativity and innovation. Many innovation models begin with a new business concept and proceed to describe what steps must be taken to develop, evaluate, and bring the concept to market. It is almost as if such models assume new business concepts are ripe for the picking and that successful innovation relies primarily on analysis and implementation.

Bragg and Bragg highlight how creativity is essential to the ‘front-end’ of the innovation process. They explain how the creative process can be explicitly employed to identify business opportunities and to develop original ideas in response to such opportunities. These real-life stories, in combination with an array of practical creativity tools, render this book both an enjoyable read and profoundly useful.

Developing New Business Ideas

has the potential to help many people realise their dreams."

Gerard J. Puccio, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, International Center for Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State College - State University of New York

 

"Here is a way of thinking that will enable the reader not just to generate new business ideas but, perhaps more importantly, to see opportunities, initiate change and cope with uncertainty. This is what entrepreneurship is really about. A way of thinking and behaving that enables people to see opportunities and innovate.

Mary and Andrew Bragg ‘break the mould’ with a book that is not about entrepreneurship and the functional business competences of the entrepreneur, but instead educates the reader for entrepreneurship by developing the right-brain attributes of the successful entrepreneur."

Professor David A. Kirby, School of Management, University of Surrey and author of Entrepreneurship

"My first business idea did not work. The next idea did, and has allowed me to run a successful company for the past sixteen years. Had this book been around all those years ago, it could have saved me a lot of time and money pursuing my first idea in the belief that it was also the best. Acknowledging that intuition is as important as practical business logic, this mind-widening book should be prescribed reading for all those considering starting their own company."

Sue Stedman, founder and managing director, Sue Stedman Corporate Clothing

"This book does just what the title promises: it provides an accessible, no-nonsense guide to nurturing great ideas and seeing them through to the creation of thriving business ventures. It is loaded with practical techniques, useful advice and real-world examples of how and why imaginative inventors, designers, entrepreneurs and companies have turned fresh thinking into spectacular success stories - along with a few that describe how it all went seriously wrong. Highly recommended."

Jim Bodoh, Director, Lloyd Northover, branding and design specialists

"Developing New Business Ideas is a very important and timely book. It draws on practical examples and relevant research to show, step-by-step, how new business ideas can be developed into viable commercial opportunities. This book is essential reading for an age in which entrepreneurship depends on innovation as never before."

John Child, Professor of Commerce, Birmingham Business School

"This book offers an up-to-date treatment of idea generation and management approaches. It deserves attention from practitioners and consultants concerned with creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the management of change."

Professor Tudor Rickards, Head, Organisation Studies Group, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

From the Publisher

How do you take a promising thought and develop it into an enterprise worth backing? Developing New Business Ideas is an imaginative and interactive companion to converting creativity into successful enterprise.

Reviews

"Having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into successful reality. By detailing four structured steps to developing saleable products or services from that first idea, this excellent and imaginative guide significantly simplifies that task. Essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs."
Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the clockwork radio

"Andrew and Mary Bragg have assembled a fascinating and formidable cast of entrepreneurial thought-masters to demonstrate the power of their own effective and crystal-clear principles of idea generation, development and implementation - lessons that anyone can exploit. Their book is a wonderful read which is a powerful idea - or rather set of interlinked ideas - in itself. Read, enjoy, learn, do - and profit."
Robert Heller, management writer and founding editor of Management Today

"If you are eager to leave the corporate rat-race for an entrepreneurial journey, the Braggs' Chapter Four is your ticket out. Thanks to this book, finding a viable new business idea just got easier."

Professor John Mullins, London Business School, author of The New Business Road Test

"Developing New Business Ideas forges a unique and powerful link between creativity and innovation. Many innovation models begin with a new business concept and proceed to describe what steps must be taken to develop, evaluate, and bring the concept to market. It is almost as if such models assume new business concepts are ripe for the picking and that successful innovation relies primarily on analysis and implementation.

Bragg and Bragg highlight how creativity is essential to the ‘front-end’ of the innovation process. They explain how the creative process can be explicitly employed to identify business opportunities and to develop original ideas in response to such opportunities. These real-life stories, in combination with an array of practical creativity tools, render this book both an enjoyable read and profoundly useful.

Developing New Business Ideas has the potential to help many people realise their dreams."

Gerard J. Puccio, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, International Center for Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State College - State University of New York

"Here is a way of thinking that will enable the reader not just to generate new business ideas but, perhaps more importantly, to see opportunities, initiate change and cope with uncertainty. This is what entrepreneurship is really about. A way of thinking and behaving that enables people to see opportunities and innovate.

Mary and Andrew Bragg ‘break the mould’ with a book that is not about entrepreneurship and the functional business competences of the entrepreneur, but instead educates the reader for entrepreneurship by developing the right-brain attributes of the successful entrepreneur."

Professor David A. Kirby, School of Management, University of Surrey and author of Entrepreneurship

"My first business idea did not work. The next idea did, and has allowed me to run a successful company for the past sixteen years. Had this book been around all those years ago, it could have saved me a lot of time and money pursuing my first idea in the belief that it was also the best. Acknowledging that intuition is as important as practical business logic, this mind-widening book should be prescribed reading for all those considering starting their own company."

Sue Stedman, founder and managing director, Sue Stedman Corporate Clothing

"This book does just what the title promises: it provides an accessible, no-nonsense guide to nurturing great ideas and seeing them through to the creation of thriving business ventures. It is loaded with practical techniques, useful advice and real-world examples of how and why imaginative inventors, designers, entrepreneurs and companies have turned fresh thinking into spectacular success stories - along with a few that describe how it all went seriously wrong. Highly recommended."

Jim Bodoh, Director, Lloyd Northover, branding and design specialists

"Developing New Business Ideas is a very important and timely book. It draws on practical examples and relevant research to show, step-by-step, how new business ideas can be developed into viable commercial opportunities. This book is essential reading for an age in which entrepreneurship depends on innovation as never before."

John Child, Professor of Commerce, Birmingham Business School

"This book offers an up-to-date treatment of idea generation and management approaches. It deserves attention from practitioners and consultants concerned with creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the management of change."

Professor Tudor Rickards, Head, Organisation Studies Group, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Edition details

• Publisher: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0273663259
• ISBN 13: 9780273663256
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288