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Continuous Improvement and Breakthrough Innovation: Why You Need Both

IdeaScale

The British cycling team used incremental improvements to go from also-rans to winning seven of ten gold medals in the 2008 Olympics. Continuous improvement increases efficiency and/or productivity, and these incremental improvements can confer a strong competitive advantage, particularly over longer time periods.

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The Creativity Crisis: It’s Getting Worse

Idea to Value

Making test scores as the measure of success fosters students’ competition and narrows their goals, such as getting rich, while decreasing their empathy and compassion for those in need. In “ The Creativity Crisis (2011) ” I reported that American creativity declined from the 1990s to 2008. Narrowing visions.

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IDEA 2008

Boxes and Arrows

37signals’ products do less than the competition—intentionally. Getting Real – Jason Fried Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of 37signals , a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary.

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CPG Industry Innovation

eZassi

They also look to outside ideas in competitions like the P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge, sharing the stage of ideation with promising startups. Following the competition and battling over market share is not a viable strategy. CPG brands that learn from the past can possibly find competitive leverage in the future.

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How to Keep Innovating in an Economic Downturn

Innov8rs

Competitive Advantage In all circumstances, leaders will and should have strategic priorities on top of their minds. Usually, you need innovation for that, which means that you either adapt to current challenges or lag behind the competition. Why shouldn’t you just give up on innovation when times are tough?

How To 105
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When tough times are ahead, you should double down on innovation

Idea to Value

For example, during the 2008-09 financial crisis, most companies cut their technology budgets by 20-30%. Their effects will stick around for a long time and can even become a clear competitive advantage for the business going forward. That obviously meant quite a bit of trouble for most technology companies.

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Preparing for recovery before it’s too late

Strategos

Discontinuities are significant, fundamental changes that have the potential to change industry dynamics, redefine the rules of competition. When we come out of recession, the market and competitive landscape will have changed, customers needs will have evolved, and you will need new competencies. Update the discontinuities.