Innovator's Toolkit: 10 Practical Strategies to Help You Develop and Implement Innovation

9

Finding the Future

Your Next Move

Key Topics Covered in This Chapter

• Objective self-assessment of where one stands on the technology trajectory
• Alternative for firms in the mature or declining phase
• Signals of change and how to find them
• Where to put innovative projects that pursue the future

CHAPTER 8 DESCRIBED the innovation S-curve and its often dire consequences for leading companies. As noted there, leaders in one generation of technology often fail to make a successful transition to the next wave of game-changing technology, and soon find themselves strategically outflanked. Many of these former leaders ride their S-curves into decline and obsolescence. It’s worth remembering that Sears, Goodyear, Xerox, Digital Equipment, U.S. Steel, ...