SET+Factors

Identifying The Opportunity: Social, Economic, and Technology (SET) Factors
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 <>

Topic overview:
New product opportunities often arise from broad changes in social and economic conditions, as well as technological advances. One good way to begin the process of identifying opportunities for your business to create breakthrough new products is to identify, observe, explore, and understand what these broad changes are and how they affect people. As a group, these are known as SET factors (Social, Economic, and Technological). The goal of these analyses is not to judge whether the SET factors are good or bad, but rather how they will change the environment in which people live, work, and play.

Evaluating SET factors to identify promising opportunities for new products is one of the first steps in Cagan and Vogel's innovative product development process. We will begin today's class with an overview of the major stages of this process. From there, we will move on to a discussion of SET factor analysis and how that analysis can be used to uncover new product opportunities.

By the end of class today, you should:
 * Understand the five basic steps in the Cagan/Vogel process for bringing an innovative new product to market
 * Be able to use the SET factor model to identify, evaluate, and understand how broad Social, Economic, and Technology changes can create Product Opportunity Gaps (POGs)

Preparation for class:
Please read chapter 5 of the book Creating Breakthrough Products by Cagan and Vogel [CV02] prior to class. This chapter is posted in digital reserve on Blackboard.

After reading about SET factors in the text, select one of the categories (S, E, or T) and take a few minutes to think about some of the broad trends that are happening in the category (S, E, or T) and write them down. If you get inspired, you can repeat the exercise for the other two categories as well.

This is not a graded exercise and you will not need to hand anything in for it. We will, however, talk about what you came up with in class, so be sure to bring your lists to class with you.

Reference materials:
Slides:

List of SET factors collected during class (in MS Word format):

SET factors identified during in-class exercise:

 * Social factors [to be completed by S team]:**

1) Attire and fashion 2) Sponsorship 3) Women in the workforce 4) CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) 5) Diversity – international mix 6) Change in social norms 7) Clubbing license 8) Smoking License 9) Drinking License 10) Church 11) Private license for pickups 12) Tunis 13) Lebanon 14) Egypt Church 15) Israel/Hizballah/Iran <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt; unicode-bidi: embed;">16) Women Driving <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt; unicode-bidi: embed;">17) Knowledge based society <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt; unicode-bidi: embed;">18) Education <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt; unicode-bidi: embed;">19) Co-ed <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt; unicode-bidi: embed;">20) Women in Politics


 * Economic factors [to be supplemented and extended by E team]:**
 * Rising inflation
 * Real estate prices
 * pushing housing out of reach for the young and middle-class
 * Price of necessities are rising, especially food
 * Increasing costs for energy, especially oil
 * Increasing investment in human capabilities (education, training, etc.)



**Technology factors [to be supplemented and extended by T team]:**
 * Widespread use and adoption of smartphones
 * increased capabilities of smartphones
 * continually increasing adoption of smartphones
 * smartphones are replacing laptop computers for many people
 * Widespread adoption of high-speed internet
 * Continually increasing number of people with access to high speed internet
 * Typical broadband speed available continues to increase
 * High speed internet is being deployed more commonly on mobile devices such as smartphones