Page 261 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation
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246 Appendix B
a strong history of organic innovation and new business devel-
opment. Even then, it’s risky. Willful defiance of senior man-
agement is more likely to be a quick trip to a pink slip than a
path to growth. It is difficult to see how this could be a man-
ageable, sustainable approach for most companies.
Toward Global, Services-Oriented
New Business Development
By the mid-1980s, the linear model of innovation was no longer
widely accepted. Indeed, in the United States and Europe, the
simmering concerns of the 1970s had turned into a full-blown
crisis of confidence, beginning with heavy industry and mov-
ing to high-tech over the decade, as first Japan and then other
Asian economies captured increasing market share. The suc-
cess of Japanese quality control and production management
and enhanced overseas competition led companies to scale
back or spin out their central R&D laboratories. In their stead,
greater emphasis came to be placed on rapid, incremental, pro-
duction-oriented innovation, a capability that was perceived
to be a factor in the rise of Japanese manufacturing companies.
Another important aspect of Japanese product improvement
methods was the integration of customer needs early in the
design process, often by actively engaging customers in inno-
vation efforts. Eric von Hippel’s The Sources of Innovation in 1988
showed how, in many cases, such understanding of customers
could be more important to project success than discovering
and developing new technologies. Large companies began
implementing formal processes for cross-disciplinary and cross-
functional teams to bring together the technology, production,
and marketing capabilities necessary to bring a steady stream
of relevant and valuable product improvements to market.