I don't know of a good argument for failing to innovate. I suppose there may be one - perhaps a firm has a monopoly on a specific niche and therefore believes that no innovation is necessary. If your firm exists in a competitive space, competes for customers and market share, then innovation is a given. Otherwise your competitors or some new entrant will create a new product, service or business mo...

So you've made it over the first hurdle - everyone agrees on the need to innovate in your business. If you are like most firms, you'll conduct a few brainstorms, investigate a few trends or new opportunities, and speak with a few consulting firms. Sooner or later it will dawn on you or your team that you don't really know what the intent of innovation is.Most management teams view innovation as a w...

Tolstoy had a famous saying that all happy families are all alike, and every unhappy family is unhappy in their own ways. Likewise, successful innovators are usually very much alike, and firms that fail often fail for a variety of reasons. However, we've compiled a list that we believe represents a significant number of the barriers to sustainable, repeatable innovation.As we believe you learn more...

There's simply no time to rest as an innovator. This was brought home to me yesterday when I purchased my first Flexplay DVD at an airport. Stuck, with little internet access, I purchased a movie and watched it on my PC. Nothing unusual about that, except that the DVD I purchased cost only six dollars and is a one-time use DVD. After 48 hours of opening the package, the DVD is no longer readable.So...

I had the good fortune to meet Scott Anthony and some of the co-authors of The Innovator's Guide to Growth at the Front End of Innovation conference last week. This book presents a number of the concepts from the Christensen series (Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, etc) in an approachable, step by step methodology for implementation. In that manner, this book and my book (Make us more Inn...