Author Archives: Rowan Gibson
This is the seventh and final ‘Innovation Perspectives’ article we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on The Importance of Innovation Strategy:by Rowan GibsonAt many companies, the term ‘innovation strategy’ refers simply to an agenda for new product development or a technology roadmap for R&D. This is like picking up a single leaf in the forest and calling it a tree. Innovation strategy is not merely about the next product launch or patent registration. It’s about exactly how your company intends to become (or remain) a world-class innovation champion. Let’s face it, not many organizations have so far managed to build a deep, enduring capability for innovation – one that consistently drives profitable revenue growth and that delivers a strong competitive advantage over the longer term. This should be the highest goal and purpose of any innovation strategy.The real strategic issue facing every company is … Continue reading
by Rowan GibsonFor most companies, there comes a moment when the only way to continue growing is, paradoxically, to divest things – to get rid of traditional parts of the business where growth has stagnated and to get into new, more innovative businesses that have the potential to grow faster.In practice, this rarely happens. When most managers are put in charge of an existing business, they tend to feel as though they have inherited an important legacy – one which should be guarded and treasured, and then passed on to the next generation. But the question is, Will they remain chained to that legacy, or are they prepared to leave it behind and move on to someplace new?That’s why a company like Virgin is interesting. Richard Branson doesn’t seem to have a sentimental attachment to anything. The moment he concludes that one of his businesses will not be profitable – … Continue reading
One of the problems with innovation is that, in any given industry, it can get harder and harder over time to come up with the kind of ideas that totally reinvent things in a fundamental and significant way.Take any vector of innovation and you get to some point where you may have just exhausted the possibilities. Look at today’s automobile. It’s essentially based on the same architecture we’ve been using for a hundred years – a wheel at each corner, a steering wheel on one side, an engine at the front or back, a gearbox, and so forth. So innovation in the automobile industry has got to the point where the car is a little bit better here, a little bit better there, but it’s the kind of stuff you hardly even notice. Apart, maybe, from the new hybrid motors which have been quite a breakthrough. But, again, if you … Continue reading
Ask any group of senior executives why they think innovation has become such an imperative, and the answer is invariably, “Because it drives growth.”This is quite a reasonable and obvious way of thinking. Pushed into a relentless and never-ending race to grow earnings faster than the industry average, companies are increasingly turning to innovation as today’s best bet for closing the “growth gap.” Trouble is, by thinking of innovation almost solely in terms of growth, many executives are actually missing the bigger picture.For most companies today, the real issue is not how to grow earnings by a certain percentage from quarter to quarter. It’s how to avoid the big and unexpected downside. Because the thing that kills companies today is not whether they are growing by 8% instead of 12%; the thing that kills them is when they miss some turn in the road – some fundamental change in the … Continue reading
“Innovation can never be risk-free, but you can certainly make sure you look before you leap.”Ever since innovation became the buzzword du Jour, a lot of people seem to have lost their ability to tell smart ideas from stupid ones. Case in point: the financial “innovations” (read: stunningly stupid loan products) that kicked off the trillion-dollar economic meltdown mess we’re currently in. The simplistic notion that “new equals good” has often been a recipe for grand-scale disaster, just as it was in the dotcom debacle at the turn of the millennium. And when the doo-doo inevitably hits the fan, it’s all too easy to level the blame at innovation per se rather than admit to being a bonehead. Here’s why many ideas that are labeled “innovations” are just plain stupidity.Simply put, innovation goes wrong (sometimes big time) when an organization over-commits to an idea before validating the key assumptions on … Continue reading
Why do some nations and geographic regions seem to be hotbeds of creative entrepreneurship and economic growth, while others remain innovation laggards? In his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Harvard professor David Landis writes, “If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes almost all the difference.” National governments the world over are waking up to this truth as they struggle to improve their countries’ global competitiveness and economic prosperity.They now recognize, as The Economist puts it, that innovation is “the single most important ingredient in any modern economy.” But how exactly can a country create the cultural and constitutional conditions for innovation to flourish? In short, how do you build an “innovation nation?”In my travels around the world, I’ve been asked this question many times, in places as diametrically opposite as Sweden and Saudi Arabia, or Moscow and Madrid. Some nations … Continue reading
