The internet age has allowed consumers to find inexpensive alternatives to just about any name brand item. In order to capture a share of the market, entrepreneurs must offer something different; they must innovate. This is the path taken by James Dyson, whose latest upright vacuum cleaner retails at a steep £460, three or four times the price of a standard vacuum. Dyson products are conspicuously expensive, but there is a no-nonsense sensibility about the price. Dyson makes design-driven, extensively tested products, and its marketing strategy is to make this technology apparent. By side-stepping completely, the trend for low cost home goods, and concentrating significantly on design and innovation, Dyson has captured a dramatic section of the market. Dyson's beginnings have become somewhat of an entrepreneurial myth. Borne out of frustration at loss of suction in his own vacuum whilst renovating his house, James Dyson looked to see if he could do better. The vacuum cleaner bag collects dust by allowing air to pass through tiny pores, these pores become clogged quickly, considerably reducing suction. To put it simplistically; merely by dint of its working, the bag breaks. Dyson's early innovation, the ballbarrow (a wheelbarrow with a large ball rather than a wheel) was already in production. He had previously faced a similar frustration with the air filter in the ballbarrow paint room. Finding it was constantly clogging with powder, Dyson designed an industrial cyclone tower which removed the particles through centrifugal force. With this solution in mind, Dyson created his first vacuum cleaner prototype. The dust would be sucked into a cone in the middle, then centrifugal force would be used to spin it out to the edges of the canister, from which it could then be removed. This was the first of 5,127 prototypes. To this day James Dyson maintains the importance of the prototype phase. Nick Schneider, an acoustic engineer working on the Dyson Cool Fan (a product for which 640 prototypes were made) describes the process as hundreds of incremental changes. It is perhaps worth noting that the manageability of this lengthy R&D phase is vastly different for an established and successful company than for a single entrepreneur. James Dyson spent most of the time he was working on the beginnings of the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner supported by his wife, an art teacher This is
The internet age has allowed consumers to find inexpensive alternatives to just about any name brand item. In order to capture a share of the market, entrepreneurs must offer something different; they must innovate. This is the path taken by James Dyson, whose latest upright vacuum cleaner retails at a steep £460, three or four times the price of a standard vacuum. Dyson products are conspicuously expensive, but there is a no-nonsense sensibility about the price. Dyson makes design-driven, extensively tested products, and its marketing strategy is to make this technology apparent. By side-stepping completely, the trend for low cost home goods, and concentrating significantly on design and innovation, Dyson has captured a dramatic section of the market. Dyson's beginnings have become somewhat of an entrepreneurial myth. Borne out of frustration at loss of suction in his own vacuum whilst renovating his house, James Dyson looked to see if he could do better. The vacuum cleaner bag collects dust by allowing air to pass through tiny pores, these pores become clogged quickly, considerably reducing suction. To put it simplistically; merely by dint of its working, the bag breaks. Dyson's early innovation, the ballbarrow (a wheelbarrow with a large ball rather than a wheel) was already in production. He had previously faced a similar frustration with the air filter in the ballbarrow paint room. Finding it was constantly clogging with powder, Dyson designed an industrial cyclone tower which removed the particles through centrifugal force. With this solution in mind, Dyson created his first vacuum cleaner prototype. The dust would be sucked into a cone in the middle, then centrifugal force would be used to spin it out to the edges of the canister, from which it could then be removed. This was the first of 5,127 prototypes. To this day James Dyson maintains the importance of the prototype phase. Nick Schneider, an acoustic engineer working on the Dyson Cool Fan (a product for which 640 prototypes were made) describes the process as hundreds of incremental changes. It is perhaps worth noting that the manageability of this lengthy R&D phase is vastly different for an established and successful company than for a single entrepreneur. James Dyson spent most of the time he was working on the beginnings of the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner supported by his wife, an art teacher This is
Chapter1: Taking Risks And Making Profits Within The Dynamic Business Environment
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1CE
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a) Explain how James Dyson’s early success can be attributed to his own’s individual creativity, perseverance and commitment to continued innovation and development.
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