722 Posts Found

In 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators, business professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble describe how companies make mistakes between innovation and execution, and outline what it takes to build a successful new business while maintaining excellence in an existing one. Based on an in-depth study, their book identifies what organizations must know to set aside key assumptions; borrow assets from an established business; and learn … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Chris Trimble, Vijay Govindarajan | Subject: Innovation

One million ideas a year. A culture of innovation. An intrinsic belief that good enough never is. Matthew May’s manifesto shows you how Toyota’s principles and practices will help you engage your creative spirit and bring elegant solutions to your work and life.

Content: Article | Author: Matthew E. May | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Innovation

The market data is unequivocal – innovation, and only innovation, drives value creation on a sustained basis. This report goes further and defines the levels of innovation that actually drive value in today’s economy. It is less often at the product level, and more often at the process and/or business model levels. The report also addresses the contrasting governance models for enterprise innovation processes, example … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: ManyWorlds | Subject: Innovation

The literature on innovation is considerably longer than my arm. It can be summarized as follows: Innovation is either a machine or a magic garden. Because it is a machine, companies should design it, oil it, power it up, and manage it. Because it is a garden, companies should create conditions under which it can flourish, stand back and let the magic occur, then harvest … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Trek Consulting LLC | Subject: Innovation

London, October 26, 2006 — The world’s most successful companies have discovered that to maximize the effect of corporate innovations, they must first identify an overarching framework, or purpose, for internal innovations. This conclusion is backed by a Booz Allen Hamilton study of 1,000 corporations, which showed little correlation between R&D spending and corporate success. Without a clear strategy it’s difficult to succeed regardless … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Nikos Mourkogiannis | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

Content: Quotation | Source: Various | Subjects: Change Management, Innovation

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Various | Subjects: Change Management, Innovation

Research indicates that effective innovation is correlated with better total returns to shareholders. But to see whether their innovations are translating into corporate success, executives need measures they can trust and track.

Content: Article | Author: Jane Linder | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Innovation, Management

This clever and entertaining essay from Paul Graham discusses how outsiders, free from convention and expectations, often generate the most revolutionary of ideas.

Editor’s Note: I really enjoyed reading this and highly recommend it…

Content: Article | Author: Paul Graham | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Great innovation is great in large part because of context. Context separates invention from innovation. Context is like the frame in art. If the canvas doesn’t fit the frame, the whole thing doesn’t quite work.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Innovation

This perspective presents a compelling argument that, when determining the profitability unleashed by an innovation, the process or model of the innovation is every bit as important to consider as the innovation itself. The perspective highlights the need for companies to analyze in a systematic way the potential of all new products to generate cash. The authors review three general models for innovation and make … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Harold L. Sirkin, James P. Andrew | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Innovation

Leaders readily acknowledge that innovation is essential for their companies’ success. And they recognize that energized employees are more likely to produce valuable innovations than those who have become passive or reactionary. However, they also struggle with the best way to drive enthusiasm and passion deep into a workforce. One often-overlooked opportunity for improvement lies in the daily conversations and meetings that either energize or … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Parker, Jane Linder, Rob Cross | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Innovation isn’t the key to economic growth. Management is the key to economic growth. Companies that rely too heavily on creativity flame out. In many ways, execution is more important.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Execution, Innovation

Companies have tended to concentrate on differences between different groups of customers. They have divided them into ever smaller and neater segments so they can customize their offerings to meet the needs of those segments.

We found that value innovators take a different approach. Instead of looking at differences between customers, they focus on the basic commonalities across customers. When companies create unprecedented value on … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation

Marketers are launching more products than ever. But the costs of bringing them to market are skyrocketing, and consumers are becoming harder to reach. A joint team of Boston Consulting Group and TBWA/Chiat/Day researched success rates, launch costs, and winning strategies. Our conclusions: build go/no go stage gates; deliver realistic expectations for launch-year volume; create launch models that reflect realistic success rates and budgets; and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Carl Rutstein, Francois Dalens, Jeff Gell | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales

Those who extol the liberating virtues of corporate creativity over the somnambulistic vices of corporate conformity may actually be giving advice that in the end will reduce the creative animation of business. This is because they tend to confuse the getting of ideas with their implementation-that is, confuse creativity in the abstract with practical innovation; not understand the operating executive’s day-to-day problems; and underestimate the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Creativity, Organizational Behavior

Advocacy of a “permissive environment” for creativity in an organization is often a veiled attack on the idea of the organization itself. This quickly becomes clear when one recognizes this inescapable fact: One of the collateral purposes of an organization is to be inhospitable to a great and constant flow of ideas and creativity.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Creativity, Organizational Behavior

Most daring new ideas are foolish or dangerous and appropriately rejected or ignored. So while it may be true that great geniuses are usually heretics, heretics are rarely great geniuses. If we could identify which heretics would turn out to be geniuses, life would be easier than it is. There is plenty of evidence that we cannot.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Most companies are not innovative. Few companies have a senior executive responsible for innovation. Few executives have taken a course in innovation. My surveys of executives at 18 companies show that they want to become more innovative. But they don’t know where to start.

My recommendation? Have your entire top management team read “Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution” … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: William C. Finnie | Source: Discovery@Olin | Subject: Innovation

It may be 104 years old, but the company churns out cutting-edge products like a brash new startup. Here are the secrets of its success.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Arndt | Source: BusinessWeek | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation