Innovation Ambition Matrix

The Innovation Ambition Matrix is a refinement of a classic diagram devised by the mathematician H. Igor Ansoff to help companies allocate funds among growth initiatives. Ansoff’s matrix clarified the notion that tactics should differ according to whether a firm was launching a new product, entering a new market, or both.

This version by Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff replaces Ansoff’s binary choices of product and market (old versus new) with a range of values. This acknowledges that the novelty of a company’s offerings (on the x axis) and the novelty of its customer markets (on the y axis) are a matter of degree. Nagji and Tuff have overlaid three levels of distance from the company’s current, bottom-left reality.