How & Who has been using the VCW over the years

  • At the organizational level, the VCW has been used by:

    • leaders, owners, C-Level, directors and other key decision makers for  innovation governance, technology-transfer, transform strategy into tactics, product and/or market growth, organizational transformation and corporate change, internationalization, corporate innovation and intrapreneuship, overcome the lack of communication across departments, and other challenges.

    • KDMs which are directors of SBUs and departments (e.g., MKT, HRM, OM, IB, INOV) to find transversal solutions across different fields for their specific challenges,

    • Employees, consultants and others providing support to KDMs of organizations, governments, societies and NGOs,

    • Entrepreneurs to solve their daily challenges of start-ups (e.g., find the right partners, tech-transfer, financing, go-to-market) as well as Intrapreneurs to address their organizational challenges.

    Hundreds of organizations across different sectors, in over 20 countries, have collaborated with VCW teams and our partners. Examples of organizations include Aga Khan Development Network, Ageas, Airbus, AstraZeneca / Santis, AXA, Bank of Cyprus, BéBécar, C.A. Papaellinas group, Cathay Pacific Airways, Cyta-Vodafone, Claranet, Credit Suisse, Crowne Plaza, Deimos-Elecnor Group, Eurocopter, Everis-NTT Data, Forbach city, Flying Tiger, Four Seasons, Gemalto, GDF Suez, GirlMove, IGT, INCM, InvestLisboa, IPO Porto, ITER, Healthcare City, Jerónimo Martins, Liga Portugal, Lufthansa Technik, Mastercard, McDonald’s, OKTAN, Otis, Piraeus Bank, Renova, Rio Tinto Alcan, Santander, Santa Casa Misericórdia Lisboa, Technik, theCamp, Thomson Reuters, Uniplaces, UPS, Vienna International Airport,  among many others.

At the educational level, the VCW has been used by professors and students in over 20 countries, in courses across different fields, as a supporting tool for projects at the individual and organizational level (e.g., innovation, value creation, consulting, entrepreneurship, decision making, marketing, int. business, strategy, business law, bioentrepreneurship, air traffic management) which involve the KDMs. Tipically these courses have a strong practical component and require a strong involvement of KDMs in students’ real VCW projects.
Examples of leading universities where the VCW was used for research and education include Aalto University, Babson College, CIIM, City University of Hong Kong, Goethe University Frankfurt, MIT, Marseille University, Nordakademie, Nova University, Korea University, Solvay University, Vienna University, Warwick University, among many others.

The VCW has also been used for years by Individuals (myVCW) to find supported and convincing solutions to solve their challenges and problems. The VCW works particularly well when solving personal challenges/problems because quite often at the individual level there is a single KDM. It has been successfully used at the individual level to answer for example:

  • What is my value proposition for the job-market?

    1. What is my life purpose?

    2. Where shall I emigrate?

    3. How to better organize my time?

    4. How can I quit smoking?

    5. How can I find an extra income?

    6. What to do in my free time?

    7. How to find my partner?

  • The VCW has also been used by Consumers/Buyers, to find solutions for important challenges when there is a lack of choice or too much choice.  It has been used to find for example:

  • Which house to buy?

    1. Which car to buy?

    2. Which computer to buy?

    3. Which school/university to enter?

    4. Where to go on holidays?

    5. How to design our new house?

Value Creation Wheel Advantages

Systematizes the generation of solutions

Helps to solve paradoxes and complex problems

Releases the process of creating ideas

Enables organizations to simultaneously look inside and outside

Organizes the selection criteria for those ideas

For which kind of questions and challenges/problems has the VCW been really popular?

  • The VCW has been very  popular to answer divergent questions (e.g., what is the best market segment for my product/service) and/or convergent questions (e.g., which criteria shall I use to select the best market).

  • The VCW is often used to address HOW, WHAT, WHICH, and WHO questions. By the end of the VCW process it becomes possible to answer questions which require deep critical thinking skills (e.g., Why this option and not other? When and how shall we implement the solution?).

  • At the organizational level, it has been very popular in Innovation and New Product Development (e.g., to find the right product/service for a market need), Engineering/Technology (e.g., Technology Transfer, find unique selling point), Marketing (e.g., to find the right value proposition, and target market), Branding/Communication (e.g., to find the right brand, slogan, message), HRM(e.g., how to hire highly qualified people with limited resources, how to motivate my employees over the long-term), Strategy (e.g., to create new markets, differentiate from competitors, repositioning strategy) and International Business (e.g., find the right distributors in market X, which markets to export my products/services).

  • At the personal level, the most popular challenges have been a) what should be my value proposition for the job-market, b) what is the most appropriate job for myself,  and c) where to emigrate?

  • It is frequently used to address the value-cost trade off, (in)existence of options and the paradox of choice. Other paradoxes also addressed include GloCal paradox & tech-push / market-pull paradox, paradox of closeness/openess, coopetition/competition paradox.

HOW (NOT) TO USE IT

For which kind of problems the VCW should not be used?

  • When the KDMs are not involved and committed to the problem and VCW process,

  • When the KDMs have no power and/or access to the 3Ms (Manpower, Minute and Money),

  • When the KDMs do not believe in co-creation and innovation for idea generation and problem-solving.

To learn more about the VCW and two decades of cooperation with companies, executives, scientists, and universities across the world please read Lages, Luis Filipe (2016), “VCW-Value Creation Wheel: Innovation, technology, business, and society”, Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 4849-4855.

Is it compulsory to have scientific supervision to implement a VCW project?

Although the answer is no for VCWsprints (see below), it is strongly advised scientific supervision for VCW projects. This is due to the following reasons:

  1. The VCW team has accumulated both tacit and explicit knowledge, which result from hundreds of projects conducted in different contexts (i.e., different problems, countries, industries, and organizations of different sizes).

  2. Depending on the context and resources, different tools might be used for the different phases of the VCW meta-framework. Two decades of projects revealed that there are different approaches and methods for different VCW challenges, which might be more or less appropriate / effective.

  3. When addressing paradoxes, complex problems and longer projects, boards and KDMs expect quick answers to their questions (e.g., straighforward questions about VCW phases and possible impact). Teams without experience with the VCW cannot answer these questions.

  4. Formal partnerships with the VCW Lab and/or VCW Center at Nova provide access to additional specialized resources to better address challenges in different contexts.