Innovation

What do you do when the very breakthrough strategy that once made your business uniquely powerful now threatens to turn you into a commodity? That’s the question stationery supplier Staples is facing. I still remember when Staples changed my life. Before its 1986 opening, buying stationery and office supplies was a time-consuming, inconvenient, and expensive […]

How physical space can reduce pain, lower costs, and save lives.

It is always instructive to examine how successful firms can go wrong, even in markets that they think they understand well. The market failure of the Michelin run-flat PAX tire illustrates the common mistake of failing to realize that even a groundbreaking product has to create a complete consumption chain. Broken links in the chain […]

Companies say they want breakthrough products, but most are far more adept at making incremental improvements to existing lines. A pioneering division at 3M successfully navigated a process that leads to breakthrough thinking.

For the past ten years, my colleague, Chris Trimble, and I have studied one critical question: What are the best practices for executing an innovation initiative? Execution is the poor stepchild of the innovation challenge. People love to engage in the hunt for the big ideas, but, let’s face it, without execution capability, an idea […]

Decisions about drug formularies need to be made in broad daylight.

Graphics aren’t just an alternative to representation in words.

Returns to innovation appear to be declining.

Three mindsets that lead to "nondisruptive creation."

Your animated interaction in response to my post The Miracle of Making Mistakes delved deep into the subject, broadened the interpretation of a mistake, and even coined a delightful new term: Risktakes. Thank you Notmd, Dawna, Brett, and all the others, who provided terrific insights over the past four weeks. A mistake is as an […]

Breakthrough innovations--not just steady improvements--in operations can destroy competitors and shake up entire industries. Just look at Dell, Toyota,...

On the basis of a sample from the top 200 of the Fortune “500” and data from the PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategies) project, this author gives some guidelines for established companies on what to expect from new ventures. He points out that it takes an average of 10 to 12 years before the […]

Luca de Meo, member of the board of management at Audi AG, discusses marketing, branding, and innovation--and how to succeed in each.

In the latest Harvard Business Review, I made the argument that failures can be useful in that they teach us where our assumptions are wrong, expose dead ends, and generally can give us something of an education. In highly uncertain environments, failures are both useful and unavoidable. It was interesting, therefore, to run across an […]

Firms have never known more about their customers, but their innovation processes remain hit-or-miss. Why? According to Christensen and his coauthors,...

A Taxonomy of Innovation

The way you describe an issue will determine how you address it.

What would you do if you only had $5 in startup funding?

Where there are customers, there is differentiation. Even for commodities.

Femtosecond lasers emit pulses of light that last just a millionth of a billionth of a second. These lasers enable surgery so precise that a single mitochondrion can be removed without harming the rest of the cell, and machining so controlled that structures can be micromachined within a piece of glass. Eric Mazur, a professor […]

Deloitte Consulting's General Manager Balaji Bondili, head of Pixel, considers how best to grow Deloitte Consulting's use of open (on-demand) talent,...

This case addresses the issues of leadership and change management in the process of transforming an industry through an innovative public-private partnership...

This case looks at a new start-up company, d.light Design, as it was seeking to go to market in India with its solar-powered LED lamps in 2009. Sam Goldman,...

This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based...

In 2004, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba created Alipay, an app to facilitate payments on its e-commerce sites. As Alibaba grew, so did Alipay, until...

The cases focus on how Zhang Ruimin, CEO of the Qingdao refrigerator factory, managed to turn around a nearly bankrupt factory which produced bad quality...

The case follows the design and creation of a software innovation lab at Volkswagen. Particular issues explored include the role and structure of internal...

This technical note outlines the process of proper experimentation in the world of business. This reading begins by describing why organizational experimentation...

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company's products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for...

In February 2023, Irene Cameron was preparing to launch her property technology (proptech) start-up Geo-Registry Integrated Datachain Inc. (GRID) in eastern...

After long dominating Mexican microfinance, Compartamos Banco faces the emergence of fintech, just as for the first time its loan portfolio and clients...

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group,...

Ambareen Musa started Souqalmal by adapting the business model of UK-based online insurance brokers (e.g., MoneySuperMarket) to the UAE context. This...

In mid-2019, a year after German conglomerate Bayer Group closed its acquisition of U.S.-based seeds giant Monsanto, the leadership of Bayer's Crop Science...

In 2015, Automaten Technik Baumann (ATB) was dismayed to learn that Volkswagen Financial Services had acquired a 92 per cent stake in Sunhill Technologies,...

How to unleash "human magic" and achieve improbable results. Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy and orchestrator of the retailer's spectacular turnaround,...

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments...

In 2006, the Cleveland Clinic and Mubadala Investment Company partnered with a bold ambition to deliver world class healthcare in the United Arab Emirates....

Lucent Technologies' New Ventures Group has created innovative ways to commercialize Bell Labs research. The success of this approach now forces the group...

Deloitte Consulting's General Manager Balaji Bondili, head of Pixel, considers how best to grow Deloitte Consulting's use of open (on-demand) talent,...

What do you do when the very breakthrough strategy that once made your business uniquely powerful now threatens to turn you into a commodity? That’s the question stationery supplier Staples is facing. I still remember when Staples changed my life. Before its 1986 opening, buying stationery and office supplies was a time-consuming, inconvenient, and expensive […]

How physical space can reduce pain, lower costs, and save lives.

It is always instructive to examine how successful firms can go wrong, even in markets that they think they understand well. The market failure of the Michelin run-flat PAX tire illustrates the common mistake of failing to realize that even a groundbreaking product has to create a complete consumption chain. Broken links in the chain […]

This case addresses the issues of leadership and change management in the process of transforming an industry through an innovative public-private partnership...

This case looks at a new start-up company, d.light Design, as it was seeking to go to market in India with its solar-powered LED lamps in 2009. Sam Goldman,...

Companies say they want breakthrough products, but most are far more adept at making incremental improvements to existing lines. A pioneering division at 3M successfully navigated a process that leads to breakthrough thinking.

For the past ten years, my colleague, Chris Trimble, and I have studied one critical question: What are the best practices for executing an innovation initiative? Execution is the poor stepchild of the innovation challenge. People love to engage in the hunt for the big ideas, but, let’s face it, without execution capability, an idea […]

Decisions about drug formularies need to be made in broad daylight.

This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based...