Quotes from the Experts

 

The Entrepreneurs' Mall^® is all about innovation and marketing, so the quotes which follow here are too.  Although our concept is brand new, many of these quotes, especially those below the Big Four Accounting Firms, represent ancient wisdom, and are presented here to give you a better picture of the value innovation and marketing has always had to your firm, or the field of commerce.

On this page we'll place the brief Historical Quotes from Experts, including Peter Drucker, underneath the newer Big Four Accounting / Management Consulting Firms quotes, with my comments in parenthesis, and their survey data.  These studies and surveys, just like the content are current, and there are very good new insights.  

I'll gladly save you all this reading though if you'd like.  All of this information points to your adoption of The Entrepreneurs' Mall^®, Inc. as your company's powerful new marketing and innovation tool.  I'd like to call your attention to the Deloitte and Touche section, because you'll notice that The Entrepreneurs' Mall^®, can help you to innovate in 10 of the 10 innovation categories.

---

 

Current Quotes from The Big Four Management Consulting Firms

 

1. Deloitte and Touche

• https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html
• https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/strategy/us-innovation-doblin-sales-sheet.pdf

“On its own, product innovation provides the lowest return on investment and the least competitive advantage. Doblin (an affiliate of Deloitte and Touche) helps companies seize opportunities across many types of innovation to gain sustainable competitive advantage.”

Deloitte recommends that you “Use multiple types of innovation.  Look beyond new products for sources of breakthrough innovation. Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation framework helps companies look beyond product innovation by introducing nine other powerful types of innovation that can be combined for a more competitive advantage.”

Doblin_TenTypesBrochure_Web.pdf (https://www.doblin.com/dist/images/uploads/ retrieved 11-19-16)

“Effective innovators take a balanced portfolio approach, splitting their investments roughly 70/20/10 between core, adjacent, and transformational innovations. We help companies strike and maintain that balance across innovation initiatives.”

---

 

2.  PricewaterhouseCoopers

• http://www.pwc.com/
• “Unleashing the power of innovation”, downloaded from http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/innovationsurvey/files/innovation_full_report.pdf, November 19, 2016

“What emerges from the latest survey is that CEOs are now taking personal responsibility for directing and inspiring innovation as it becomes an ever more vital element of business survival and success. How companies innovate is also being transformed. Companies might once have been satisfied with incremental product improvements. Now, they’re increasingly looking for breakthrough developments in their business models and the solutions they provide for customers. ”

“The days when innovation was the preserve of research and development (R&D) units at the sidelines of the business have gone. Successful companies recognise that innovation is a mainstream process, which brings together frontline teams, customers and a range of different partners from beyond the organisation. At the heart of these developments is the realisation that how you innovate determines what innovations you deliver.”

“Almost all the CEOs taking part in our survey recognize the value of innovation for their companies, with most seeing it as either a priority or a primary focus (see Figure 1). This is a step change from our survey in 2009. Back then, sharpening operational effectiveness was the overriding objective as companies sought to survive the sudden loss of revenue caused by the financial crisis. Now, three-quarters of CEOs regard innovation as at least equally important to operational effectiveness (see Figure 2). The strategic importance of innovation is further reflected in the fact that CEOs see their role as leader or visionary rather than delegating responsibility down the line (see Figure 3).”

“Innovation’s rise up the CEO agenda reflects the changing business environment. Growth is now exceptionally hard won and simply doing what you’re doing a little better may not be enough to sustain it.”

“The focus of innovation is becoming more radical as CEOs look for whole new sources of revenue rather than just better products.”

“What brings these new business models together is a shift in focus from products to solutions. The product is clearly an important part of the solution, but not everything. In turn, the role of technology goes beyond creating new and improved products towards gaining sharper insights into what customers want and how to deliver it. A common thread in the feedback from participants was the need ‘to spend more time in the marketplace’.”

“In which of the following areas is your company looking to innovate in the next 3 years?” 

Survey respondents (246 CEOs, Global CEO Pulse Survey on Innovation) first choice by percentage:

• 26% Products
• 17% business model
• 15% customer experience
• 13% technology
• 9% supply chain and channels to market
• 9% services
• 8% systems and processes
• 2% none/don’t know
• 0% other

The top three mentions to be innovated were:

• 48% Products
• 45% technology
• 44% customer experience
• 43% systems and processes
• 41% business model
• 37% services
• 33% supply chain and channels to market
• 2% None/Don’t know

“The importance of putting innovation at the heart of strategic management and involving the frontline of the business is reflected in the fact that CEOs see the right leadership and culture as the most crucial ingredients for success (see Figure 5). Related areas of culture such as the capacity for creativity, willingness to collaborate and readiness to challenge accepted norms are also high on the list.  A clear indication of innovation’s move into the mainstream is that many companies now expect staff to allocate at least some of their time to developing and supporting new ideas, rather than simply relying on a few bright sparks. Many participants talked about the need ‘to empower frontline staff’. The fact that talent is quite low down the list would further underline the move from innovation being ‘alchemy’ by the few to ‘cookery’ by the many.”

“The importance of collaboration can be seen in the number of companies that are now working with customers or other businesses to co-create new products and solutions. The rapid upsurge in the sale of e-readers and e-books is a good example of how these collaborations can create game changing opportunities for some businesses and the threat of marginalization for slower moving competitors. ”

“26% of CEOs said strong visionary business leadership was the most important ingredient to successful innovation at a company” and another 26% said “having the right culture to foster and support innovation”

“CEOs also see culture as one of the biggest constraints. This suggests that encouraging people within the organisation to embrace innovation is still proving to be a challenge. An important part of overcoming this barrier is to eliminate the bureaucratic decision making processes that slow down the commercialisation of innovations.  A participant went so far as calling for the ‘management pyramid to be turned on its head’, while accepting that in reality she would have to ‘struggle with the existing culture and structure, like most companies.’

Building innovation into everyone’s job description and creating opportunities for collaboration that go beyond the traditional functional and organizational boundaries are also important. The most successful companies have gone further in seeking to create a culture of innovation. In keeping with innovation’s changing risk/reward profile this includes giving people extra time to create and nurture opportunities and being prepared to tolerate risk and failure. ”

---

 

3.  Ernst & Young

• http://www.ey.com/
• http://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/advisory/advisory---innovation

“Innovation is not optional. It's a must. The acceleration of change and scale of disruption from data, digital technologies, globalization and other forces means organizations have to evolve to survive.”

http://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/transactions/ey-capital-strategy-is-collaboration-the-new-innovation (November 10, 2016)

“Industrial mash-ups: a powerful way of driving growth is emerging. We’re at the dawn of a golden age of business innovation. The maturing of the cloud, smart mobile devices, big data analytics and social networking has sparked a revolution in how companies create value—from business processes, marketing and governance — and especially their approach to innovation.”

“The business value of the opportunity is enormous—the GE Foundation cites research estimating the economic impact of IoT will range between $2.7 trillion and $6.2 trillion annually by 2025.  To take advantage of this opportunity, indeed, to avoid being left behind, companies must move fast. Of the many challenges companies are facing, none is more pressing than the pace of change.”

“We live in the age of innovation, driven by the rapid evolution of technology and data which has fundamentally changed consumer behavior. This is creating unrelenting pressure on consumer products (CP) and retail companies to put innovation at the center of their business.

Succeeding in this environment requires CP and retail companies to develop a highly agile model for innovation that accelerates speed to market and helps them to re-imagine business models and transform consumer experiences.

Yet delivering transformation on this scale is extremely challenging. Our survey confirms that innovation is becoming increasingly difficult. Most large companies are hardwired to maximize efficiency, minimize variances and avoid experimentation. This can be incompatible with a culture in which risk-taking is a prerequisite for success.

A growing number of companies are now looking outside their organizations for new ideas. Smaller entrepreneurial firms offer the agility and creative thinking that larger organizations need to unplug innovation bottlenecks.

Yet, in practice, it is very difficult to get these collaborations right. Overcoming the challenges of collaborating will be critical to delivering agile innovation.

“The growth and prosperity of all economies, rapid-growth and mature, remains highly dependent on entrepreneurial activity  [ed. emboldened emphasis added]. Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of economic growth — they provide a source of income and employment for themselves, create employment for others, produce new and innovative products or services, and drive greater upstream and downstream value-chain activities. While some entrepreneurial activity around the world is still driven by necessity, “high-impact” entrepreneurship, once largely confined to mature markets, is now an essential driver of economic expansion in rapid-growth markets. In some cases, these high-impact entrepreneurs are building innovative and scalable enterprises that capitalize on local needs and serve as role models for new entrepreneurs. ”

 

http://www.ey.com/gl/en/issues/driving-growth/growth-through-innovation---refresh-your-business-model-regularly-to-achieve-competitive-advantage (retrieved 11-19-16)

“Companies that alter their business model are more likely to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage"

[ed. emboldened emphasis added].

It is much more difficult for a competitor to copy a business model than it is to replicate products or services. “Enterprises need to be more platform-oriented — continuing to innovate the business model — in order to be able to transform faster”

Markus Heinen, Performance Improvement Advisory Leader for Germany, Switzerland and Austria at EY

 

---

 

4.  KPMG

• http://www.kpmg.com/
• Lynne Doughtie, Chairman and CEO, KPMG, LLP
• (“Innovation is about more than the next big thing” full-page Special Advertising Feature to the Wall Street Journal [WSJ], on Wednesday, November 16, 2016, page B4)

“Leaders recognize that they are operating in a new world, where boundaries are no longer defined and where innovation is vital for growth… CEO Outlook 2016, the vast majority of CEOs surveyed”  had “Fostering innovation… high on their list of concerns, surpassed only by meeting customer demands.”

“The most forward-leaning leaders are single-minded about creating company cultures that create a true spirit of innovation.”

“Seventy-seven percent of the CEOs surveyed say it’s important to include innovation in their business strategies, yet 36 percent say their companies’ approach to innovation is still siloed, outsourced or unpredictable.  It seems then that leaders understand that innovation is the key to the future, but many haven’t yet woven it into the fabric of their organizations.”

“Eighty-five percent of CEOs recognize that they don’t have sufficient time to strategize about reacting to disruptive forces.  However they are realizing that innovation is not just a sidebar, but perhaps their most important area of focus.”

[ed. emboldened emphasis added]

“The most resilient companies foster a pervasive culture of innovation at all levels of the organization — one that values risk-taking, embraces experimentation and considers failure an inevitable part of thinking boldly.”

“We have always believed that the most successful solutions reflect a diversity of skills, thinking, experiences, and outlooks.”

“Embracing disruption with innovation takes courage.  CEOs may be called upon to abandon certain aspects of the company’s heritage, invest in untested ideas and make institutional changes that turn traditional approaches on their heads."

[ed. emboldened emphasis added]

Of the CEOs KPMG surveyed, 76 percent believe their businesses could be disrupted by companies they don’t even think of as threats.  Clearly, we need to be proactive about predicting disruption or risk losing valued customers to these invisible competitors.  More important, we must be ready to embrace the disruptions that signal existing, if still unforeseen, opportunities.”

 

---

 

Historical Quotes from Experts

 

Quotes for Corporate Lessees

“The successful challengers didn’t just invent things once, they sustained innovation over a period of time”.

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna)

“Technology has a way of creating new products, new ways of doing business, new markets, and new segments of old markets that even the most experienced industry participants do not (in fact, cannot) foresee.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 198)

“To thrive in fast changing markets, you have to take risks. There will always be someone out there who is taking risks, and the ones that succeed will drag customers away from the companies that don’t take risks.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna on page 84)

“In the past, many industrial giants have faded from leadership as technologies and markets shifted. The railroad industry, the steel industry, the textile industry - all of these industries have seen powerful companies crumble in the face of change and competitive innovations.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 207)

“It is a given within the R & D community that the most effective route to technological innovation is through the interaction of people. This occurs only when the boundaries among different organizations are highly permeable.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc. of New York, 1989, page 49)

“Today… we see that other companies, not IBM, own the largest share of the personal computer marketplace. These other companies have succeeded largely because of Big Blue’s lack of sustained innovation.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 73)

“Change is not easy for large corporations to accept. Faced with change, large corporations often become defensive, acting on the basis of historical models rather than the way things could be.  Leading companies … have all become arrogant and resistant to change.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 67) 

“Behind all the current financial problems of many companies is a scenario… the companies who have lost their technology take three or four years to feel it on the bottom line.  That’s what happened.  It’s a very simple formula.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 100)

“Historian Arthur Schlesinger once noted that human beings have been on earth for about 800 lifetimes… Movable type came into being only eight lifetimes ago, and industrialization appeared only three lifetimes ago. There have been more scientific and technological achievements in the last two lifetimes then in the first 798 combined! And there will probably be at even greater number in the next lifetime.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna on page 198)

“Only through innovation, can we come up with ways to economically outperform competition. This is what new technology is all about. Products and processes become obsolete, replaced by new, superior ones. No product or process is safe from this threat  [ed. emboldened emphasis added].  Unquestionably, the ability to create super technology, far superior to what the rest of the world has done, exists today in United States (for example, Star Wars, or SDI). And many otherwise great ideas, have failed to make it past their corporate bureaucracies (we have also sold products and promising research our universities have developed to our foreign competitors). The motivation to create these products exists. As does the expertise. And by working with entrepreneurs, who are willing to take the risks associated with their ideas, we can again be ‘head and shoulders’ above the rest of the world.”

(“Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, New York, published by Basic Books, Inc., in 1989, pages 14–15)

‘… All stories on innovation share an important characteristic. The person or team behind the innovation was both current with the relevant technology and had a feel for the marketplace.’

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 39, and this was [quoted from Robert Waterman’s book The Renewal Factor])

“Complexity increases as the quantity and diversity of knowledge, information, skills, experience, the materials necessary to produce a synthetic product or process increase. As synthetic products, processes, and projects become more complex, they pass beyond the capability of an individual to create, develop, and manage them.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, New York, published by Basic Books, Inc., in 1989, page 42) (ed. bold emphasis added)

“Technological entrepreneurs who have created a major technical innovation and the company behind it, have become fewer as technology has become more and more specialized. Increasing complexity simply requires more expertise.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc. of New York, 1989, page 62)

“The invention, let alone the innovation [ed. note: which includes the discovery, invention, development, production, and marketing of a product] (demanded by) high technology products requires the ability to tap, integrate, and give synergism from a wide range of knowledge, information and skills that go far beyond the capabilities of a genius. Therefore, looking to individuals for invention and successful invention of high-technology products and processes is a simple formula for disappointment.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition, by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc., New York 1989, page 62)

“The evidence is that where there is cooperation between the public and private sectors, United States is competitive in the international marketplace.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 74)

“Being the lowest cost producer of an obsolete product or service has little value. Obsolescence is a driving concern. Thus the goal is to be first or, if not first, early in the production of goods and services that were not previously available. Being first provides a brief monopoly.  Being concurrent makes it possible to compete, but being late is to be not competitive at all.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 76)

“Vannevar Bush was head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development or OSRD, created by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt to mobilize the nation’s scientific and technical resources.  As a key architect of the new organizational complex, Bush appreciated the revolutionary character of what has been invented. He saw that the real genius of the system lay in the ability to link government, industry, and University researchers together. These three previously separate repositories of expertise and skills, when joined, produced synergistic capabilities.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 104)

The “striking discovery of the war, then, was what could be accomplished when basic scientists, industrial organizations, and military users were linked under conditions of organizational flexibility and compelling national need.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 107)

“To accomplish this (technical success) it was necessary to shatter the separations and barriers to interaction that has historically characterized the three institutions (government, industry, and universities).  Arms length relationships were converted into intimate cooperative cross-fertilizing relationships. The systems both facilitated the rapid transfer of scientific theory into applications and stimulated a rapid acceleration in research and technological capability… a set of institutions that had previously been divided by walls separation became virtually seamless web.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 112) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“… They understood the mores of the scientific community and the norms of its operation; thus they understood that the most fruitful way to utilize and mobilize the scientists was to give them a problem and get out of the way [ed. bold emphasis added]… (Vannevar) Bush and his colleagues acted primarily as recruiters, liaison people, and facilitators. Through their contacts with the military they identified technological problems and needs and then found the appropriate people to work on them. An example was the proximity fuse (a triggering device which would cause a shell to explode when it came within a certain distance of an aircraft or above ground).”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 117)

“America’s contemporary dilemma is caused not by a lack of innovative capabilities but rather by a mismatch between our capabilities and those of a growing number of foreign competitors. If the experience of the 1980s has been grim, the future will be even more so unless a major restructuring and reallocation of our innovative capabilities occurs. The rising innovative capabilities of the NICs are likely able to increase the number of competitors and accelerate the rate of commercial innovation.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 229)

“Quoting Lester Thurow ‘The changes that will be required can only be described as fundamental structural change. Every American and almost every American institution will have to be willing to change if Americans are to meet the economic challenges facing them as they prepare to enter the third millennium.’”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 231)

 

Peter F. Drucker Points to Ponder:  

“Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.”

(The Essential Drucker) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes”

“Every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels—training and development that never stop.”

(The Essential Drucker) [ed. bold emphasis added]

 

Peter F. Drucker on Innovation

“An innovation is a change in market or society. It produces a greater yield for the user, greater wealth-producing capacity for society, higher value or greater satisfaction. The test of an innovation is always what it does for the user. Hence, entrepreneurship always needs to be market-focused, indeed, market-driven.”

(Peter F. Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship) 

“Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.”

(Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“An enterprise, whether a business or any other institution, that does not innovate and does not engage in entrepreneurship will not survive long.”

(Management Challenges for the 21st Century)

Innovation “… should always be … a responsibility of top management. And it should always include the systematic and purposeful search for innovative opportunities.”

(Innovation and Entrepreneurship) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“The unexpected success is an opportunity, but it makes demands. It demands to be taken seriously. It demands to be staffed with the ablest people available, rather than with whoever we can spare. It demands seriousness and support on the part of management equal to the size of the opportunity. And the opportunity is considerable.”

(Innovation and Entrepreneurship)

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old,” but “People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete - the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.”

[ed. bold emphasis added]

“The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them … They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves.”

(Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Even today few businessmen understand that research, to be productive, has to be the ‘disorganizer,’ the creator of a different future and the enemy of today. In most industrial laboratories, ‘defensive research’ aimed at perpetuating today, predominates.”

(The Effective Executive)

“Staffing the opportunities instead of the problems not only creates the most effective organization, it also creates enthusiasm and dedication.”

(The Effective Executive)

---

Quotes for Entrepreneurs

 

Peter F. Drucker Points to Ponder:

“The best way to predict your future is to create it” 

“This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” 

“Two hundred people, of course, can do a great deal more work than one man. But it does not follow that they produce and contribute more.”

(The Effective Executive)

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” 

“Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”

Peter Drucker

"My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better."

Steve Jobs

“What is critical for scientific success or technical advance at the individual level is for the scientist, engineer, or technician to have state-of-the-art knowledge”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, New York, published by Basic Books, Inc., in 1989, page 43) [ed. bold emphasis added]

"Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work."

Vince Lombardi

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

Sam Walton

“Your struggles always lead to strength.”

Zig Ziglar

“The American West was not settled by lone rangers, precisely the opposite. It was settled by wagon trains and community barn raising’s – social organization. Individuals alone on the High Plains of Montana in 1840 or 1870 were not successful – they were dead.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc. of New York in 1989, page 61 [where he is quoting Lester C. Thurow, The Zero-Sum Solution: Building a World Class American Economy (New York, Simon and Shuster, 1985, on page 125])

“Efficiency is a measure of how to do something for less cost, but to measure relative cost requires that you know already how to do it and already have a cost standard. No such standard exists when the contract calls for doing something that has never been done before and that no one knows how to do.”  And from page 163: “objective, empirical, valid, reliable efficiency judgments are not possible when one is contracting to do something no one knows how to do.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, pages 160 and 163)

 

Why Entrepreneurs?

“It probably will not come as a surprise that less innovating companies are dominated by tall hierarchies, and that honoring the chain of command is a value.” 

(The Change Masters by Rosabeth Moss Kanter)

“Success and size have a way of translating into a culture of arrogance that blinds a company to the real beats of the customers into the rising challenges of competitors.” 

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 66)

“The best and most innovative products generally come from small development groups. Why? Within small groups it is easier to coordinate activities and keep the project on track. What’s more, individuals working within small groups are more likely to feel a sense of commitment and a shared sense of purpose… Large markets always grow from small seeds”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, pages 104-105) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Large companies like Xerox and IBM often fail to take advantage of the work performed at their own in-house research labs… (they’ve) been phenomenally productive… (and) have developed some of the most innovative ideas of the information age. But these ideas rarely are translated into products… The problem is that no one makes the connections between the technology and the market.”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 138) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Studies have shown that small companies were responsible for about 55% of recent innovations in the US… According to one estimate, Japanese companies acquired 32,000 technology licensing agreements, mostly from the US, between 1950 in 1978. It is estimated that the Japanese paid $9 billion for these licenses, but it gave them access to technologies that cost the developers more than $500 billion dollars.” 

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 152)

“It isn’t visionaries that IBM has to worry about. It is the people who put 1 foot in front of the other, day by day, not burdened by the past… The successful challengers of the future will be companies that thrive on change. Rather than sitting back and letting that happen to them, these companies will become catalysts of change. They will influence change to guarantee themselves a piece of the future. They will build adaptability to change into the structures of their companies. In short, they will take the steps that are needed to survive and thrive in an ever-changing world…”

(Who’s Afraid of Big Blue by Regis McKenna, page 212) [ed. bold emphasis added]

---

 

Peter F. Drucker Points to Ponder:

“History has been written not by the most talented but by the most motivated.” 

“Entrepreneurs innovate. Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. It is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

(Innovation and Entrepreneurship)

“Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.” 

“The less an organization has to do to produce results, the better it does its job.”

(The Effective Executive)

---

 

Quotes from Thomas Edison

“From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.”

“Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability…. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”

“I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.”

“The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.”

“Innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship.”

[ed. bold emphasis added]

Any time change is needed, innovation offers the potential for optimal leverage.

How do you get more innovative successes?  Endure more failures, but never give up.

---

 

Quotes for Corporate Shoppers

 

 

Peter F. Drucker Point to Ponder:

“Managements must look at every unexpected success with the questions: (1) What would it mean to us if we exploited it? (2) Where could it lead us? (3) What would we have to do to convert it into an opportunity? And (4) How do we go about it? This means, first, that managements need to set aside specific time in which to discuss unexpected successes; and second, that someone should always be designated to analyze an unexpected success and to think through how it could be exploited.”

(Innovation and Entrepreneurship)

“Sometimes new knowledge in the form of research results or specialized expertise that may not be widely diffused within the technical community is needed at the beginning of a development project (developing a new product or process often takes five years or more).  In other cases such knowledge will prove critical near the end of a project. Typically, research enters the process at multiple points. Moreover, the great majority of American firms, large as well as small, lack the resources to be self-sufficient in technology and science. The complexity and pace of technology have simply outstripped their ability to keep up. Institutional mechanisms for technology development and diffusion – transferring know-how and research results to those in industry who need them – must not only be flexible, they must be capable of responding to widely varying needs at different stages in development and commercialization”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc. of New York in 1989, page 48) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“An important element of the continuous innovation process is the ability of organizational complexes to recognize and exploit serendipitous discoveries.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc. of New York in 1989, page 57) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Nothing is more critical to the future competitiveness of United States in the export market then a broad appreciation of what is involved in the complex synthetic innovation… (It) exists in its most advanced form here in defense, medicine, and agriculture. The failure to transfer the lessons learned from these three sectors to the commercial export sector is a source of our export weakness.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 58) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“the future entrepreneurs of high-technology likely to be people who… Know how to chat the accumulated organizational learning… To satisfy some newly perceived market niche’… The critical role of group/organizational learning to contemporary high-tech entrepreneurs is suggested by the tendency of electronics entrepreneurs to be located in Silicon Valley or a long Boston’s route 128… these locations provide concentrations of expertise and organizational learning that entrepreneurs who see a new market can rapidly use to build their network for the purpose of innovating products or processes… innovation based competitive success requires moving new ideas and methods to the market rapidly.  Continuous innovation requires the resources to build and continuously change production and marketing capabilities as necessary to remain competitive in the international market… Cutbacks mean that companies break up teams in which reside organizational learning that is likely to be crucial to future success.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, published by Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 63) [ed. bold emphasis added]

“There is no greater danger to an organization’s success… Than for managers to substitute their decisions for a substantially informed consensus decision making process.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash published by Basic Books Inc. of New York in 1989, page 66)

“For the information process to work, those who need information must receive it in a direct and efficacious manner… Technological development and scientific understanding do not progress at a smooth, steady pace across a broad front. Major, unexpected breakthroughs can offer vastly improved performance capabilities and thus allow the establishment of much higher performance standards. Such breakthroughs are seen in the development of the transistor, the microchip, computers, and so on”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 150)

“A growing set of bureaucratic decisions and rules may actually inhibit a company’s innovation by not allowing them to consider some suppliers, just to reduce the amount of procurement work to do.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 165)

“Consumer electronics is the classic example of Japan’s movement from total lack of participation in the international marketplace to dominance in it. Here, as in the case of heavy industry, the initial Japanese approach was to license or buy the right to produce state-of-the-art products.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 192)

“… For the United States the Japanese challenge has not plateaued. Indeed, the deliberate effort by Japan to accelerate its capability for radical innovation will post ever more difficult competition for the United States.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 207)

“Fundamental change without political/economic disruption is, at best, a hope, but the alternative is a near certain American decline into second-class economic status.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 209) [asis added]

“The fundamental change in the nation’s trade position – and especially it’s high-tech trade position – has many causes…  At its core, however, is an irreducible fact – United States has not built and sustained an organizational complex capable of continuous synthetic innovation aimed at the export race. We have not done in the commercial export sector what we have done in defense, medicine, and agriculture.” 

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 211) [asis added]

And from page 212:

“If United States is to become competitive in the export race, it must build and sustain an organizational complex capable of synthesizing superior products and processes. Failure to develop such a capability will mean that the nation’s ability to meet its commitments and satisfy its appetites will continue to erode… The conclusion seems compelling that if the United States is to achieve a surplus trade balance, it must be carried primarily by manufacturers.”

[ed. bold emphasis added]

And from page 213

“If we are to escape a major economic disruption, we must out-innovate our commercial competitors... It is this book’s central thesis, however, that even if all these actions are taken, they will still not meet the nations challenge in the export race. The central and irreducible requirement if the United States is to be competitive in the synthetic reality is that (editors emphasis added) IT MUST BUILD AN ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEX WITH THE CAPABILITY OF CONTINUOUSLY PRODUCING COMMERCIALLY ORIENTED SYNTHETIC INNOVATIONS. The nation must have an export race-oriented capability for synthetic innovation that parallels what it has now in defense, medicine, and agriculture.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 214)  [ed. bold emphasis added]

“Continuous synthetic innovation of commercial products and processes is critical to America’s well being…”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition” by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 215)

“The difficulty in tapping and utilizing the huge body of expertise and skills located in government agencies, captive nonprofits, FFRDCs, and government laboratories is a costly limitation on commercial innovation.”

(Perpetual Innovation: The New World of Competition by Don E. Kash, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1989, page 218) [ed. bold emphasis added]