The China Factor

Chapter 19Innovation Models: West and East

There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

So You Are Innovative—Now What?

• Maintaining the Western innovation advantage.
• Evolving your product-innovation approach for different markets.
• Employing different innovation models (an introduction to innovation models).

Introduction

It is no secret that the key to the West's success over the last few decades has been its innovation advantage. The showcase example is Silicon Valley in the United States, and emerging competitors are emulating this innovative spirit and catching up.

China has been good at collaborating with U.S. and Canadian innovation groups, and has excelled at commercializing the ideas that result—that is, taking the innovations to market. But as the Chinese create partnerships with their innovation counterparts, we must consider whether the learning and the benefit is mutual or whether it is weighted more heavily to one side.

Westerners are innovative, yet not always sufficiently driven to implement, execute, or commercialize great ideas to the same extent as the Chinese or other emerging entrants (EEs) may be, which presents an economic-competitiveness quandary. As Thomas Edison said over a century ago, genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

The challenge for Western innovators, in view of current trends and market evolution, is that it is no ...