The Challenge of Imovation
It is surely one of business’s great paradoxes that maybe, just maybe, an innovator might have something to learn from an imitator. However unlikely, it is a truism, and this author describes why an innovator should pay close attention to, and even respect, an imitator. He also describes why and what an imitator can learn from – who else ? – an innovator. In the … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Oded Shenkar | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation
Claude Legrand and Dr. David S. Weiss
The problem with any discussion on innovation is that the word “innovation” is used in many different ways. The most useful and practical definition is “applied creativity that achieves business value.” Rather than thinking of innovation as a value or an end goal or the exclusive domain of R&D, it is most useful to think of it as the best process to solve complex problems … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Claude Legrand, David S. Weiss | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation
Claude Legrand and Dr. David S. Weiss
As we moved from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy over the past 25 years, the nature of critical issues changed from complicated to complex. Complicated issues can be solved with logic and by drawing on past experience. It’s simply a matter of simplifying, organizing and applying solutions that have worked in a similar situation. Complex issues, on the other hand, are more ambiguous, … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Claude Legrand, David S. Weiss | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, Problems / Solutions
Strategic Innovation and the Fuzzy Front End
Innovation is a process, and while the introduction of a genuinely innovative product or service may be highly publicized or even glamorous, the process itself is driven much less by creative brainstorming or strategic planning than by carefully managed and highly-sophisticated cross-disciplinary thinking and research. Readers will learn how to manage the critically important first steps from this thinker, author and CEO.
Content: Article | Author: Idris Mootee | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation
Henry Chesbrough
The business model is the predominant way a business creates value for its customers and captures some piece of that value for itself. It is generally accepted that a better business model can often beat a better technology. Yet companies that spend many millions of dollars on R&D seldom invest much money or time in exploring alternative business models to commercialize those … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: Henry Chesbrough | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy
The Innovator’s Straitjacket
Even the sanest of companies can unintentionally put themselves in a straitjacket that makes it hard for them to create high-potential new growth opportunities. Here’s how leaders unintentionally limit their innovation efforts.
Content: Article | Author: Scott Anthony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior
Jonah Lehrer
We use creativity in the singular, as if there’s one way the brain generates new connections. But there are probably three neurologically distinct forms of creativity. One is when you have these moments of insight that come out of the blue–when you have epiphanies in the shower. Those seem to come from the part of the brain that’s involved in things like the interpretation of … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: Jonah Lehrer | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Creativity
The Five Cs of Opportunity Identification
Simply asking “what job is the customer trying to get done?” can be a powerful way to enable innovation, because it forces you to go beyond superficial demographic markers that correlate with purchase and use to zero in on frustrations and desires that motivate purchase and use.
Seductive simplicity hides a rich, robust set of opportunity identification tools. Through our experience utilizing the “jobs-to-be-done” concept in … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Scott Anthony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales
Putting the Customer First
Hayagreeva Rao explains why innovation is about more than just new technology.
Content: Article | Author: Hayagreeva Rao | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation
Are You Winning the Global Innovation Game or Are You Being Left Behind?
Being successful at innovation today means changing the way you think about where critical knowledge comes from and how to use it.
Content: Article | Authors: Keeley Wilson, Yves Doz | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Innovation, International
10 Reasons Why Ideas Fail
Whether you’re an executive in a big company, a marketing manager, a business owner or pretty much anyone with a dream, here’s a checklist of the 10 most common pitfalls to avoid, with some recent real-world examples.
Content: Article | Author: Steve Tobak | Source: CBS News | Subject: Innovation
Moving Toward Global Innovation
Mukti Khaire
Commentary influences culture, which influences what we consume, which is influenced by what is actually out there in the market. If you can shift one of these elements you can actually create a new market.
Content: Quotation | Author: Mukti Khaire | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales, Miscellaneous
An Interview with Yves Doz
Yves Doz is Professor of Strategic Management and the Timken Chaired Professor of Global Technology and Innovation at INSEAD, and Visiting Professor at the Helsinki School of Economics. He was Dean of Executive Education (1998-2002) and Associate Dean for Research and Development (1990-1995) at INSEAD. He has also taught at the Harvard Business School, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Seoul National University, and Aoyama Gakuin … [ Read more ]
Content: Thought Leader | Author: Yves Doz | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, International
Lewis L. Lehro
Managers are people who like order. They like forecasts to come out as planned. In fact, managers are often judged on how much order they produce. Innovation, on the other hand, is often a disorderly process. Many times, perhaps most times, innovation does not turn out as planned. As a result there is a tension between managers and innovation.
Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Innovation
Oded Shenkar
Innovating firms are able to internalize routines that facilitate variation (e.g., improvisation), have combinative capabilities (e.g., are capable of decomposing and recombining different types of knowledge), and can reflect, update, select, assimilate and integrate superior routines and capabilities. They develop routines for exchanging information with suppliers and for appropriating spillovers (which implies imitating activity). Good imitators possess much of the same: They are able to … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: Oded Shenkar | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation
Funding Innovation: Is Your Firm Doing it Wrong?
Many companies are at a loss about how to fund innovation successfully. In his new book, The Architecture of Innovation, Professor Josh Lerner starts with this advice: get the incentives right. Also, read an excerpt of the book.
Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Innovation
The Art of the Imperfect Pitch
Professor Baba Shiv discusses how you can coax risk-averse managers to innovate and introduces the “X Framework.”
Content: Article | Author: Baba Shiv | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Career, Change Management, Innovation, Organizational Behavior
The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key
Booz & Company’s annual study shows that spending more on R&D won’t drive results. The most crucial factors are strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation.
Content: Article | Authors: Barry Jaruzelski, John Loehr, Richard Holman | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation
How Do You Capture Value from an Innovation?
Creating a good product does not ensure success in the marketplace, though it is a necessary first step. The next steps, whose goal is to capture maximum value from the new product, are crucial. This article will help practitioners successfully structure these “next steps.”
Content: Article | Authors: Matthias A. Tietz, Simon C. Parker | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation
