Innovation that Fits: Moving Beyond the Fads to Choose the RIGHT Innovation Strategy for Your Business

Description:

Over the past decade, companies have tried one new strategy after another to promote innovation: corporate venturing and VC funds, intrapreneuring, patenting and IP licensing, innovation-by-alliance, innovation-by-acquisition, spinouts, spin-ins, and many more. By and large, they've failed. However, innovation is even more urgently necessary than it's ever been. Now, three leading experts on commercializing innovation systematically sort through the wreckage of yesterday's strategies, learning lessons and identifying ideas worth preserving and adapting. To prepare this book, the authors thoroughly examined the record of more than 250 innovation programs from organizations of widely differing sizes and industries, from 1998 through 2003. Based on this unprecedented research, they reveal the right time to use each innovation 'arrow' in your quiver, how to account for contingencies and risks; and how to focus on core innovation challenges -- not just superficial symptoms. Along the way, the authors define a focused, integrated model for innovation: one that is more nuanced and complex, but also better-grounded, more durable, and far more effective.

 

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments.

About the Authors.

1. Making Sense of Innovation Fads and Fashions.

    Innovation Excitement, Then Disillusionment

    Reconsidering Innovations in Innovation

    Bringing Silicon Valley Inside

    Spinnovation

    Virtual Reality: Patenting, IP, and “Asset-Lite”

    Shared Creation

    If You Can’t Build It, Buy It

    Mixed Results: What Exactly Is It?

    The Allure of Innovations in Innovation

    Background and Overview

2. Corporate Venturing: Best of Both Worlds or Venturing Too Far?

    Breaking the Old Molds

    The Disappointing Record of Corporate Ventures

    The Consummate Corporate Venture Capitalist

    Core Problems with Corporate Venturing

    Can You Be Too Free?

    Diverging Approaches Toward Cars of the Future

    An Established Operating Company Is Not a VC Portfolio

    More Mature CVC Approaches

    The Need for Core Venturing

3. The Virtual Asset-Lite Model: Intellectual Property Licensing.

    The Old Economy: Real Companies, Real Products

    Intellectual Property Rules

    IBM = IPM (Intellectual Property Management)

    The “Knowing” and “Doing” Connection

    The Secret of Life (Patent Pending) Itself

    If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

    Limitations of the IP-Centric Model

    Size Matters: Scaling Intellectual Property

    IP as a Beginning, Not the End

    Turning Licensing Inside-Out

    The Ins and Outs of In-Licensing

    The Ambiguity of Intangibles

    In-Licensing: Hollowing Out the Core?

    Bottom Line: How Real Is the IP Revolution?

    The Future of Innovation as IP Licensing

4. Innovation by Alliance: Reconsidering Innovation Collaboration.

    The Perils of Partnering

    Collaborating to Compete

    Consortium Dysfunctions

    The Attraction of Open Innovation Collaboration

    The Elusive Symbiosis of Innovation Alliances

    Joint Venturing Lessons Learned

    Toward More Focused Innovation Alliances

    Pursuing Direct, Active, Engaged Partnerships

    Avoiding Joint Problems

5. R&D by M&A: Innovation by Acquisition.

    Why the Acquisition Boom?

    Cisco the Serial Acquirer

    Changing R&D Paradigms

    Need for Speed, Technology, and Talent

    The Deal-Making Denouement

    Hangover from an R&D M&A Binge

    Talented Competition: Palm Versus Handspring

    Buying Innovation Still Can Be a Good Deal

    A Durable Part of a Core Innovation Strategy

    Limits of Innovation by Acquisition

6. Spinnovation: Liberating Value or Spinning Out of Control?

    Liberating Innovation?

    Spinning Out of Control

    Spin.com: How Not to Spin

    The Umbilical-Cord Spinout

    Navigating a Spinout

    Employing Spin Control

    A Tale of Online Travel Agents

    The Right Spin

7. Conclusion: Toward a New Model for Innovation.

    Core Complexity

    Transforming the Core: Internalizing Radical Innovation

    Fueling Core Innovation from Inside and Outside

    Importance of Portfolio and Process

Endnotes.

Index.