FISH: First in. Still Here.
Anonymous
Most executives I know are frankly scared these days. Competitive and business rules have changed too quickly. They don’t understand their competitive landscape and its new rules. Why? There’s too much uncertainty and unknown risks. They can’t forecast based on historically, stable, and straight-line assumptions.
Executives need to generate revenue and cut costs. We’re seeing massive head-count reductions to reduce costs. But, when the company is cutting to the bone, innovation is a better way to generate new sources of revenue. Companies at looking to innovate constantly and rapidly to sustain profitability during this recession.
Executives face the challenge that the history of technology is full of neat ideas that just didn’t cut it. Sometimes, the customer had unrealistic expectations. Sometimes, the development team was clueless of what the customer really wanted. Sometimes, the techno-turkey product or service simply didn’t connect with the end user.
And, there are time and cost pressures. Companies now develop a new generation of products yearly or even quarterly. Competition is Darwinian. Although some 13,000 new products hit the market each year, only 40% will be around 5 years later. The time-to-market math becomes pretty simple.
Life Lesson Earned: If you’re innovative and have experience commercializing products, then you’re going to be well positioned over the next 10 years. If you’re fundamentally not innovative, then find ways to support innovation, to commercialize it, or to monetize it. As much as possible, you want to be on the innovation and revenue side of equation, not the expense side.