Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator

Foreword

Finding your way through any unfamiliar jungle is always easier with Google or (gasp) even paper maps. That's why this book is so important – it's the map big corporations need to uncover a disruptive innovation powerhouse inside their own companies. Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator first challenges whether you have the right pieces in place to set up an accelerator at all, and if you do, it helps you navigate the road to success along every step of the way. For the best results, consider sharing this book generously with your leadership team and everyone involved in the innovation process.

Successful disruptive innovation is a war that big corporations have been losing for generations. With your determination and the authors’ guidance, perhaps the next decade can be the turning point where companies actually get it right. What the heck, it's only been 75 years since we lost Henry Ford, and 90 for Thomas Edison, right?

Over the past century, large companies poured billions of dollars into allegedly disruptive failures with an embarrassing success rate – well below 10%. Remember Edsel, Saturn, Betamax, and New Coke? They're just a whisper of the cast of fallen characters. Each is incrementally innovative, for sure, but all are simply old solutions with a few new bells and whistles.

And, as the authors discuss, many corporations excel at innovation theater: putting young people in cool tech-forward office space with foosball and ping pong plus a dozen exotic ...