Don't just survive--thrive
Subtitle: leading innovation in good times and bad
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Bruce Harreld
Contributors: Harreld, Bruce; Harvard Business School
Edition: Rev.
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 09-127; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 09-127.
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2009
Place of publication: [Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 20
Description: Battered by contracting markets and frozen credit, many businesses today are fighting for survival. This paper describes how IBM managed to, not just survive the crisis it faced in the early 1990s, but to reposition the company to lead the industry. The powerful lesson from the IBM story is that innovation is not a side business to running the real business. Innovation is the business. Breakthrough innovations that change people's lives and the very structure and power dynamics of industries can't be managed as "silos," tucked away in corporate, university, or government research labs, in incubators, or within venture capital funded entrepreneurial start-ups. Access to the marketplace is needed to help speed commercialization and adoption. Emerging opportunities must be nurtured and the transition to high growth must be managed. Once breakthrough innovations catch hold, growth must be funded and managed to exploit the full value of the opportunity. And finally, incremental innovations must ensure that businesses that have passed through the high growth stage can continue to deliver the resources, capabilities, and platforms needed to fuel the emerging opportunities of the future. This business lifecycle view of innovation requires new leadership and organizational models and new approaches to managing risk and uncertainty.
Notes: "April 2009, revised May 2009"--Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references.