Innovative Product the Product Line of Yerba

Innovative Product

The product line of Yerba Hair Care shampoos made from Yucca root by the represents a revolutionary new product made with old technology and knowhow. The product is an example of entrepreneurship since Taos Herbal was launched with in 1981 to take advantage of the health craze of the time and demand for natural products of the time ("Yerba hair care...," 2011).

In the case of this product and its introduction to the market it uses both approaches entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. While the company was launched in a spirit of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship has piloted the development of such product lines as Yerba Hair Car shampoos. The intrapreneurship approach was necessary due to the pressure from bigger companies who are now marketing "natural" products with herbal supplements, thereby negating this advantage to Taos Herb Company's product lines. For this reason, it has been necessary for Taos to choose a niche market where a prospective consumer will pay more for a product that they feel has been ethically harvested and produced from wild products. In such circumstances, the company is grabbing a smaller percentage of the market. However, their grasp of this market portion is based upon the perception of an upscale market that a large "evil" corporation can not produce a product harvested by Native American hands. Only a small ethical company is willing to share its profits with the Native Americans whose knowledge and ingenuity preserved and passed on such a great product knowledge. While targeting a mainly female audience who spend more time than men in primping their hair, they are also integrating a market demand for men whose thinning hair needs a superior natural product to lessen the damage from chemicals in most commercially available hair care products. This is abundantly clear from the testimonials on the company web site which feature mostly women, but also a minority of testimonies from balding older men (ibid and Winduss, 2008) .

The disadvantage for such an approach is that it does limits the market that the company can appeal to. On the other hand, due to the smaller company size and relative lack of resources (especially in a long recession), this is only a small disadvantage. In the long run, it is more advantageous given the company's small size and resources to concentrate upon a more lucrative niche market with disposable income that can afford a more expensive product that has features such as ethical harvesting. Such qualities add value in the mind of this market with the higher income.

Previously, the challenges were steep. However, with the present demand for natural environmentally friendly products, this is not as large a leap as it was when the company was founded in the 1980's. Thus in terms of our proposed scenario, this was an intrapreneurial approach and product brought about by a company that came from entrepreneurial roots. Taos Herbal sought to recapture its natural market by intrapreneurial exploitation of a new market niche has cropped up with the new wave of environmental and ethical consciousness. If the product had been brought to the market through entrepreneurial means, it likely would have been attempted via partnership or a buyout situation with a new startup company.