why do companies miss out on opportunities right under their nose erich joachimsthaler the author of hidden in plain sight examineswhy do companies miss out on opportunities right under their nose erich joachimsthaler the author of hidden in plain sight examineswhy do companies miss out on opportunities right under their nose erich joachimsthaler the author of hidden in plain sight examineserich joachimsthalerthe more successful companies often dont seem to see the biggest opportunities in plain sight says erich joachimsthaler founder of strategy and marketing innovation firm vivaldi partners strange as it may sound it is true and joachimsthaler set out to examine the reasons why that happens and how companies can guard their flanks the result is a book titled hidden in plain sight harvard business school press may 2007 the research led joachimsthaler to look at sony which was once the world leader in music players for all of the 1970s the 1980s and the 1990s sony had all the things needed to follow the mp3 opportunity says joachimsthaler but it still frittered away the opportunity and then there was apple a computer company that had nothing to do with music cut to 2001 and apple revolutionised the mp3 space with the ipod today talk of mp3 players and everyone thinks of apple but do you even know what is the no 2 mp3 music player no one knows do you know what is the no 2 online music download retailer no one knows says joachimsthaler in mp3 players and music downloads it is the apple story all the way why did sony not notice an opportunity that was right under its nose and how did apple strike a goldmine in a terrain it was not even familiar the correct starting pointthe apple and sony story holds a few lessons on how companies can find opportunities as joachimsthaler would put it hidden in plain sight after the success of the walkman sony which was organised by silos started looking at the world from insideout so you look from the success of the walkman and say where are other people who would like to have a walkman or another variation of a walkman says joachimsthaler so all their energies were concentrated on one blockbuster and on how to squeeze more out of it apple on the other hand had a completely different approach for one it did not look at the walkman and say how do we create a music player better than that instead what apple did was study how people live around and manage their music we neednt create another product and push it down consumers throats by creating a different or better value proposition says joachimsthaler we look at how people manage music manage video libraries manage communications and see the fundamental behaviours we have to change so that we can create value for consumers that was the starting point for apple the trick lies in reconstructing a day in the life of a consumer this works