It’s always a welcome moment when a new perspective on innovation is offered from the folks over at Clayton Christensen’s Innosight consulting firm. They’ve just recently published a new book, The Innovator’s Guide to Growth… Read more »
Innovation
Even law firms can use new business models - Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges
An article in Fast Company’s September issue features a Los Angeles law firm that is making big bucks with a business model that is foreign to traditional firms. For some years, I’ve worked with the… Read more »
Turning the insurance business model on its head: FM Global
Fast Company, a magazine that often uncovers little gems, reports on a unique business model being pursued by insurance giant FM Global. Instead of deploying armies of actuaries to predict the risk of certain types… Read more »
Jigsaw – creating a market for contact information
Anne Ferguson, my assistant, drew this one to my attention. The company in question, Jigsaw, is trying to create a market for contact information, using a variant of the ‘free labor’ theme I’ve written about… Read more »
Michelin PAX Run-Flat: A stillborn revolution
This weekend’s New York Times carried the sad headline, “Michelin Giving Up on PAX Run-Flat Tire.”. So much for an innovation that was supposed to revolutionize the tire industry, in much the same way that… Read more »
Yikes! Putting your core business in discovery mode: BlockBuster and Circuit City
The unsolicited attempt by video rental chain Blockbuster to take over electronics retailer Circuit City looks like a pretty desperate move. In short, a company that prospered with the rise of the whole rent-it-out couch… Read more »
Follow up on payment systems – RadioShack and Western Union’s money-transfer offer
In a recent post, I noted that many companies are trying out different ways to change how we make payments, with American Express having decided that apparently key fobs is not the way. Just today,… Read more »
FotoNation: Why new entrants to an industry often see opportunities incumbents don’t
This past Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported on a terrific little Irish-based company, FotoNation, that has achieved breakthrough growth by using software algorithms to solve problems that have bedeviled the photography industry for years. Red-eye,… Read more »
Innovation and the last gasp of dying technologies
In the January, 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review, Daniel C. Snow shared some research he’s been doing on product transitions—when one dominant design or conventional product gives way to a different or more… Read more »
Staples “M Line” an effort to escape brutal commoditization
As a long-time fan of stationery supplier Staples, I was intrigued to note that they are adding a whole new, more upscale, line of products called the “M Line”. The goal is to create a… Read more »
Business Models based on “free”
A point of departure for discovery driven planning is the selection of a unit of business, which implies a particular business model. In a recent edition of Wired magazine, editor Chris Anderson created a useful… Read more »
The Innovation Value Chain – Thoughtful, useful, concept
Colleagues Morten Hansen and Julian Birkinshaw posted a really solid piece in the June 2007 Harvard Business Review (which I’ve just gotten around to reading). Essentially, they argue that companies tend to focus their attention… Read more »