Innovation begins with an eye: Netting a Bug List

2008-07-09

Sometimes-if you’re lucky-you can find inspiration for innovation by observing yourself. In many parts of your life, you go through steps so mechanically, so unconsciously, that this is not possible. When you’re off your own beaten path, however, you are more open to discovery. At those times, you are more open to ask the childlike “Why?” and “Why not?” questions that lead to innovation.

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Hurdles in Making Innovation Everyone’s job: No Slack

In the pursuit of efficiency, companies have wrung a lot of slack out of their operations. That’s a good thing. No one can argue with the goal of cutting inventory levels, reducing working capital, and slashing overhead. The problem, though, is that if you wring all the slack out of a company, you’ll wring out all of the innovation as well.

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Hurdles in Making Innovation Everyone’s job: The Drag of Old Mental Models

Contrary to popular mythology, the thing that most impedes innovation in large companies is not a lack of risk taking. Big companies take big, and often imprudent, risks every day.The real brake on innovation is the drag of old mental models. Long-serving executives often have a big chunk of their emotional capital invested in the existing strategy.

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Hurdles in Making Innovation Everyone’s job: Creative Apartheid

There are many folks, CEOs included, who believe that creativity is narrowly distributed in the human population. In this view, there is a tiny minority of individuals who are highly inventive and a big majority who are not. In Hamel’s experience, this prejudice is particularly strong among those who have “creative” careers-filmmakers, designers, entrepreneurs, and the like.

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The Future of Management: Making Innovation Everyone’s job

Collapsing entry barriers, hyperefficient competitors, customer power -these forces will be squeezing margins for years to come. In this harsh new world, every company will be faced with a stark choice: either set the fires of innovation ablaze, or be ready to scrape out a mean existence in a world where seabed labor costs (Chinese prisoners, anyone?) are the only difference between making money and going bust.

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Michael Porter on Strategy: Competitive strategy is about being different - The case of IKEA

Ikea, the global furniture retailer based in Sweden, also has a clear strategic positioning. Ikea targets young furniture buyers who want style at low cost. What turns this marketing concept into a strategic positioning is the tailored set of activities that make it work. Like Southwest, Ikea has chosen to perform activities differently from its rivals.

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Michael Porter on Strategy: Competitive strategy is about being different - The case of Southwest Airlines

2008-07-08

Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value. Most managers of Southwest Airlines describe strategic positioning in terms of their customers: “Southwest Airlines serves price and convenience-sensitive travelers,” for example. But the essence of strategy is in the activities-choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals

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