“Innovating has become the buzz-word of American management. Firms have found that most of the things that can be outsourced or reengineered have been (worryingly, by their competitors as well). The stars of American business tend today to be innovators, such as Dell, Amazon, and Wal-Mart, which have produced ideas or products that have changed their industries,” said the Economist.[i] A Brand U with a vision started each of these companies.
The numbers are stunning. “Innovation, the process of translating inventions and new ideas into commercial products, is largely responsible for the tenfold rise in the living standards of American families over the last hundred years” say William Baumol, an economics professor at New York University who believes that innovation drives competition.[ii] And interestingly, innovation develops not so much through a zero-sum game, one company winning as another loses, but through inventive collaboration. Large companies have the assets and we Brand U’s have the ideas and gut desire to commercialize these ideas.
And the need for new products is on the Brand U side. Companies must now develop a new generation of products yearly. Competition is Darwinian. Although some 13,000 new products hit the market each year, only 40% will be around 5 years later.[iii] The time-to-market math for new products becomes pretty simple.
[i] “Fear of the Unknown,” The Economist, December 4, 1999, p. 61.
[ii] Weinstein Michael, “Rewriting the Book on Capitalism,” NY Times, June 5, 1999, p. A 17.
[iii]Gustke, Constance, “Built To Last,” Sales & Marketing Management, August, 1997, pp.78-83.