Tag Archive for 'Innovation'

Inside Johnson & Johnson’s Innovation Shop

Published on December 28, 2011 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: .

J&J is seeding small, high-risk ventures through RedScript Ventures, a two-year-old accelerator program.

A huge health-care company like Johnson & Johnson requires a steady stream of innovation, but that’s getting harder and harder to create. So the 125-year-old company is getting more aggressive at mining ideas from outside. It’s seeking out very early ventures that it once would have considered far too risky and seeding them with money or dishing out advice on how to nudge untested ideas out of the laboratory.

Some experts say J&J’s relationship to innovation is the right model for a large company. “It lets the marketplace do what it does best, which is have an explosion of different kinds of companies in various fields,” says Richard Foster, lead director of the board at Innosight, a consulting firm that has done work for J&J. “These companies will need major infusions of capital, or a global distribution chain. At that point, J&J says, ‘We are very effective in rolling innovations out—very quickly and cost efficiently [Source].’”

Meet the young innovators who are changing the world

Published on October 25, 2011 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Each year Technology Review honors 35 innovators under 35 who are tackling important problems in transformative ways. Candidates come from around the globe, some from regional TR35 competitions run by TR’s international editions. Find the ranking here.

Selecting Technology Review’s yearly list of 35 innovators under the age of 35 is a difficult but rewarding process. We search for candidates around the world who are opening up new possibilities in technology, and then we seek the advice of a panel of expert judges before finally selecting the winners. We look for people who are tackling important problems in transformative ways [Read more].

Sometimes that transformation comes from developing an entirely new technology, such as graphene transistors that could one day replace silicon devices in microprocessors. Sometimes it means using existing technologies in novel ways, such as creating an effective way for local businesses to advertise electronically or organizing social networks to build up a community of patients suffering from a disease.

Business Model Innovation

Published on January 3, 2011 in Emerging Markets and Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Sooner or later, all businesses, even the most successful, run out of room to grow. Faced with this unpleasant reality, they are compelled to reinvent themselves periodically. The ability to pull off this difficult feat—to jump from the maturity stage of one business to the growth stage of the next—is what separates high performers from those whose time at the top is all too brief [Source].

Companies that successfully reinvent themselves have one trait in common. They tend to broaden their focus beyond the financial S curve and manage to three much shorter but vitally important hidden S curves—tracking the basis of competition in their industry, renewing their capabilities, and nurturing a ready supply of talent. In essence, they turn conventional wisdom on its head and learn to focus on fixing what doesn’t yet appear to be broken [Source].

A preview of such business models can be found in emerging markets. Opportunities of the future can be spot on a street corner in Bangalore, in a small city in central India, in a village in Kenya—and they don’t require companies to forgo profits. On the surface, nothing could be more prosaic: a laundry, a compact fridge, a money-transfer service. But look closely at the businesses behind these offerings and you will find the frontiers of business model innovation. These novel ventures reveal a way to help companies escape stagnant demand at home, create new and profitable revenue streams, and find competitive advantage [Source].

Right now more than 20.000 multinationals are operating in emerging economies. According to the Economist, Western multinationals expect to find 70% of their future growth there—40% of it in China and India alone. But if the opportunity is huge, so are the obstacles to seizing it. The Economist wrote, “The only way that companies can prosper in these markets is to cut costs relentlessly and accept profit margins close to zero.”

When Innovation, Too, Is Made in China

Published on January 1, 2011 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , .

As a national strategy, China is trying to build an economy that relies on innovation rather than imitation. So can China become a prodigious inventor? The answer, in truth, will play out over decades — and go a long way toward determining not only China’s future, but also the shape of the global economy [Source].

Clues to the Chinese approach emerge from a recent government document containing goals for drastically increasing the nation’s production of patents. It offers a telling glimpse of how China intends to engineer a more innovative society.

The document, published in November by the State Intellectual Property Office of China, is called the “National Patent Development Strategy (2011-2020).” It discusses broad economic objectives as well as specific targets to be attained by 2015 [translation of the document].

2010 Young Innovators Under 35

Published on October 24, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

MIT Technology Review’s annual selection of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work–spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more–is changing our world.

Find the entire list of ideas and detailed profiles here.
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Office politics

Published on May 13, 2010 in International Business. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Microsoft bids to keep its grip on corporate computing against Google’s challenge.

In a significant move, Microsoft announced new, web-based versions of popular applications such as Word and Excel as part of the “Office 2010” release, and unveiled changes designed to make it easier for workers to collaborate using its software. These initiatives come at a critical time in the evolution of corporate computing. After dominating the office desktop for so long, Microsoft now faces a growing challenge from a variety of companies that are betting they can leverage the cloud to erode its share of the market.

Among other things, the new, web-based version of Office will make it much easier for workers to use documents and spreadsheets on a host of different devices, including smart phones. Microsoft has also tweaked its software to make it easier for people to, say, embed videos in PowerPoint presentations and to integrate data from their social networks into online calendars and e-mail services. And the company plans to offer a free, stripped down version of its web apps that will compete directly with Google’s mass-market offering [Source].

What defines your business?

Published on May 12, 2010 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , .

A sharp brand certainly helps. Portfolio.com ranked the top 25 brands for small- to mid-sized businesses in the USA. Find here the results.

Furthermore, you can find Portfolio’s special report on branding here. Insightful article are how Singapore branded itself and how Nike is branding itself beyond the swoosh.

A New World Order in Innovation

Published on April 17, 2010 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , .

For the first time since Bloomberg BusinessWeek began its annual Most Innovative Companies ranking in 2005, the majority of corporations in the Top 25 are based outside the U.S.

Respectively, 12 are from the US and 13 from outside US with notably companies from South-Korea. The reason: the new global leaders coming out of Asia. However, a bit worrisome are companies from Europe, the first company on the list is ranked 16.

Please find the complete list here. Also check out this HBS working knowledge article from 2005 on “The Rise of Innovation in Asia“.

10 Web Trends For 2010

Published on December 7, 2009 in Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

web-trends-2010As the year draws to a close, what does 2010 hold for social media and the web? While web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are emerging.

Among the good bets for 2010 online: Real-time, Content Curation, Cloud Computing, Convergence Continues (eBooks are the exception), Social Gaming and more.

This week’s CNN column looks at 10 of the big themes that will shape the next year on the web.

World’s Best Companies 2009

Published on October 3, 2009 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , .

bestThe 40 names making the list, compiled by A.T. Kearney for BusinessWeek, are thriving in the recession and preparing for beyond. The ranking can be found here.

What are some traits of the World’s Best Companies? A commitment to innovation, diversified portfolios, aggressive expansion, strong leadership, and a clear vision for the future. “In an environment of continuous disruptive change, companies that have rigorous strategic planning initiatives that allow them to see over the horizon…are far more likely to win than those that make it up as they go along,” says Paul Laudicina, chairman of A.T. Kearney.

To create the list, A.T. Kearney examined the 2,500 largest publicly listed companies in the world. Kearney’s team singled out those with a minimum of $10 billion in sales in 2008, at least 25% of which came from outside the company’s home region. It then ranked the companies on their sales growth and value creation—the rise of market capitalization after subtracting any increase in capital—over the past five years.