Innovation in Business

Leadership for Innovation

Professor Hill explains that leaders at many high-profile and innovative companies have built communities of people who are both “willing and able to innovate.” They develop willing teams by pulling people together with a shared purpose, values, and rules of engagement.

Garage-Based Innovation

The drive to invent that Bill Hewlett and David Packard shared when they launched HP in a garage decades ago is critical to organizations today. As we shift from a knowledge-based economy to a creative economy, innovation-driven companies will be the leaders. Fortunately, says Phil McKinney, creativity is a skill that can be practiced and learned, and he shares his “FIRE + PO” process for tapping human ingenuity.

The Risk Matrix

How do growth leaders such as Procter & Gamble, GE, and Amazon consistently achieve above-average organic growth? These companies pursue a disciplined, systematic process that distributes innovations across a spectrum of risk, ensuring that they balance incremental growth with breakthrough opportunities.

Getting from Little Bets to Big Breakthroughs

Much like the standup comedian who tests and refines jokes in small clubs before rolling them out to a television audience, most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas: they discover them through a deliberate process of creative trial and error. From his research on innovative leaders, from Apple, 3M, Toyota, and Starbucks, to the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency strategists, to artists and even standup comics, Peter Sims found they shared a surprisingly similar approach.

The Brand Race

Win brand relevance by timing your product innovations to market need (Apple), tapping underserved segments (Luna), building a robust customer relationship (Harley-Davidson), erecting barriers to competition in execution (Zappos), and becoming an exemplar brand (Prius).

Sustainability Matters

With consumers favoring products and services that are better for the environment, companies are finding competitive advantage in the environmental impact of their activities.

Driving Innovation in a Tough Economy

After reinventing itself years ago from a software-for-PCs producer to a software-for-the-enterprise producer, Microsoft is now in the midst of a multi-year initiative to transform itself again—to a software-plus-internet-services provider. And Microsoft remains committed to that transformation, notes Chris Capossela, despite the global economic downturn. In fact, it sees the crisis as an opportunity to rally all parts of the company behind its “big, big bets” for the next five to ten years.

The Opportunity and Threat of Disruptive Technologies

Many of history's greatest growth markets were created by a disruptive technology that was met with resistance from traditional industries and organizations. Clayton Christensen demonstrates that in order to create new business in emerging markets, you need appropriate management of technological innovation and the ability to find new markets for new technologies.

Open Business Models

Dr. Henry Chesbrough describes how to open your closed innovation model and rejuvenate your company's broader business model. He details specific examples of enterprises that have successfully leveraged innovation to create and capture value from ideas and technologies.

Strategy by Design

Tim Brown advocates using the three stages of “design thinking”: inspiration, ideation, and implementation to create successful innovations that are desirable to consumers, technically feasible, and viable from a business point of view.

Innovation Management and Incentives Design

Innovation generates value when supported by an infrastructure that provides discipline without killing passion. To accomplish this, management systems for innovation require careful design. Antonia Dávila provides guidance for setting goals and incentives that ensure your strategies foster, rather than stifle, the creative strength of your organization.