1.

Fat Copycats

Imitation is not only more abundant than innovation, but actually a much more prevalent road to business growth and profits.

—Theodore Levitt, 1966

A few years ago I approached an acquaintance, a senior executive with a large national retailer, to promote a new technology-enabled marketing tool developed by a foreign start-up. The tool, embedding voice recognition technology in a novel marketing application, seemed especially suitable for that retailer, which enjoyed a reputation as an industry trendsetter. My contact later returned with a question: was this a novel concept, or had it already been in use? I proudly confirmed that the tool was brand new and that his firm was the first to be approached. “In that case,” came the ...

Get Copycats now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.