The April 24 issue of BusinessWeek has a special cover feature on innovation. Big picture concepts presented:
In the 1990s, innovation was about technology and control of quality and cost. Today, it's about taking corporate organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for creativity and growth.
With a widening pool of new ideas, innovation is about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time.
The No. 1 obstacle, according to BusinessWeek's survey takers, is slow development times. Yet companies often can't organize themselves to move faster. Fast cycle times require taking bets even when huge payoffs aren't a certainty. In addition, speed requires coordination from the hub: fast innovators organize the corporate center to drive growth; they don't wait for it to come up through business units.
IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano sums it up well by saying: "The way you will thrive in this environment is by innovating -- innovating in technologies, innovating in strategies, innovating in business models."
