Unrelenting Innovation: How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance

Unrelenting Innovation: How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance

by Gerard J. Tellis
Released January 2013
Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
ISBN: 9781118352403

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Book description

The hands-on guide for fostering relentless innovation within your company

Gerard Tellis, a noted expert on innovation, advertising, and global markets, makes the compelling case that the culture of a firm is the crucial driver of an organization's innovativeness. In this groundbreaking book he describes the three traits and three practices necessary to create a culture of relentless innovation. Organizations must be willing to cannibalize successful products, embrace risk, and focus on the future. Organizations build these traits by providing incentives for enterprise, empowering product champions, and encouraging internal markets.

Spelling out the critical role of culture, the author provides illustrative examples of organizations with winning cultures and explores the theory and evidence for each of the six components of culture. The book concludes with a discussion of why culture is superior to alternate theories for fostering innovation.

  • Offers a groundbreaking take on innovation that is driven by a company's culture

  • Shows what it takes to create a culture of innovation within any organization

  • Based on a study of 770 companies across 15 countries, the origin of 90 radical innovations spanning over 100 years, and the evolution of 66 markets spanning over a 100 years

  • Provides numerous mini cases to illustrate the workings of culture

  • Written by Gerard Tellis director of the Center for Global Innovation

This must-have resource clearly shows the role of culture in driving relentless innovation and how to foster it within any organization.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Series Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Figures and Tables
  6. Foreword
  7. Chapter 1: Why Incumbents Fail
    1. Why Incumbents Fail to Innovate Unrelentingly
    2. The Preeminence of Culture
    3. Culture as a Primary Explanation
    4. Basis for the Book
    5. Conclusion
  8. Chapter 2: Willingness to Cannibalize Successful Products
    1. Why Incumbents Are Reluctant to Cannibalize Products
    2. Why Willingness to Cannibalize Is Important
    3. Increasing Rate of Innovation
    4. Limitations of Acquisitions
    5. Challenge of Technological Change
    6. Understanding Technological Evolution
    7. Blinded to an Opportunity: Microsoft Keywords?
    8. Crippled by Fear of Piracy: Sony MP3 Player
    9. Decline of an Innovator: Eastman Kodak
    10. A Cycle of Cannibalization: Gillette's Innovations in Wet Shaving
    11. Late Move: HP Tablet
    12. Conclusion
  9. Chapter 3: Embracing Risk
    1. Sources of Risk: Innovation's High Failure Rate
    2. The Reflection Effect: Asymmetry in Perceived Risk
    3. The Hot-Stove Effect: Learning from Failure
    4. The Expectations Effect: Hope Versus Reality
    5. Innovation's Gain-Loss Function: Type 1 and 2 Errors
    6. Case Histories
    7. Gambling on an Embryonic Market: Toyota's Prius
    8. Gambling on Growth: Amazon.com
    9. Gambling on Vision: Facebook
    10. Gambling on Scale: Federal Express
    11. Conclusion
  10. Chapter 4: Focusing on the Future
    1. Why Future Focus Is Tough
    2. Availability Bias
    3. Paradigmatic Bias
    4. Commitment Bias
    5. Planning for the Future
    6. Predicting and Managing Takeoff
    7. Targeting Future Mass Markets
    8. Predicting Technological Evolution
    9. Analyzing Emergent Consumers
    10. Conclusion
  11. Chapter 5: Incentives for Enterprise
    1. Traditional Incentives: Winning Loyalty
    2. Asymmetric Incentives: Turning Failure into Success
    3. Making Incentives Work: Economics and Psychology of Incentives
    4. Power of Incentives: IBM's Transformation
    5. Incentives for Enterprise: Google
    6. Incentives for Loyalty: General Motors
    7. Incentives for Innovation: 3M
    8. Structuring Team Incentives: IBM's Learning from Online Gamers
    9. Conclusion
  12. Chapter 6: Fostering Internal Markets
    1. Characteristics of Markets
    2. Implementing Internal Markets
    3. Managing Internal Markets
    4. Conclusion
  13. Chapter 7: Empowering Innovation Champions
    1. Luck Versus Innovation Champions
    2. Characteristics of Champions
    3. Testing Luck
    4. Champions Versus Teams
    5. Champions at the Top Versus the Bottom
    6. Distributed Champions: Google's “Young Turks” Program
    7. Serial Champion: Roger Newton
    8. Championing Mass Market of the Future: Tata Nano
    9. Championing a Music Revolution: Apple iPod
    10. Mobilizing an Organization for Innovation: Sony Walkman
    11. Steps in Empowering Champions
    12. Conclusion
  14. Chapter 8: Culture Versus Alternate Theories: Arguments and Evidence
    1. Micro-Theories
    2. Macro-Theories
    3. Conclusion
  15. Bibliography
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. The Author
  18. Index

Product information

  • Title: Unrelenting Innovation: How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance
  • Author(s): Gerard J. Tellis
  • Release date: January 2013
  • Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
  • ISBN: 9781118352403