Innovation can rapidly alter not just how things can be done efficiently, but even more importantly, it can also change virtually the whole playing field in a remarkably short period. This is again best seen in terms of the commercial environment. The metaphor of the buggy-whip factory illustrates the point. A manager might be running his buggy-whip factory in a superlative manner. Production is way up.
Costs are way down.
Service delivery has never been better, customers are delighted and loyal, and the employees are happy. Nevertheless, this theoretical brilliantly managed buggy-whip factory was made obsolete by the car. The playing field changed. Peter Drucker talks about this in terms of the business theory of an organization, something that often has to be completely reinvented if the business is to stay in step. This reinvention goes far beyond outsourcing, downsizing, reengineering and benchmarking, all of which are merely tools that allow organizations to do differently what they are already doing.