1. Success at innovation lies at the intersection of:
Invention, production, and customer relationship management.
The innovator's domain expertise, social interaction skills, and ability to recognize and move into opportunities.
The relationships between incumbent (established) firms and challengers.
Incumbent firms, competitors, and customers.
2. Growth companies stop growing because:
They fail to operate with economies of scale.
Customers always start developing their own inhouse solutions.
The government introduces regulations that favor newer firms, in order to maintain free competition.
Competition increases and the market becomes saturated.
Stretching the current S-Curve is a viable way of continuing to grow revenues through:
3. Making investments in new inventions.
Developing radical new innovations and taking them to the market quickly.
Market penetration, expanding into new geographies, and acquiring competitors, among others.
Exiting from the industry and moving into another, more favorable industry.
4. The essential difference between a current S-Curve and a new S-Curve is that:
A new S-Curve emerges only for new firms entering the industry but not for existing players
The new S-Curve emerges based on a portfolio of business ideas that are very new compared to what the company has been engaged in so far.
The new S-Curve is simply an extension of the current S-Curve.
Established companies with large market shares can never develop a new S-Curve because of organizational redundancies that are too difficult to get rid of.
5. Disruptive innovations:
Target market segments that are already served by existing products.
Are significantly better and less risky compared to sustaining innovations.
Create new dimensions of value that the old product category or business model is unable to address.
Can never be created in a young industry.
6. One of the distinct pathways to value-creating growth is:
Disruptive, i.e. companies that are challengers in the industry.
Dominant, which includes firms that happen to be owners of the dominant design.
Staggered, i.e. companies that operate in many related and unrelated markets.
Fading, which is about companies in stable markets with a low competitive premium.
7. In order to become fit for growth, a company must focus on the following three strategic elements:
Defensive strategies, supplier integration, and economies of scale.
Playfulness, protyping, and diversification.
Build current and future capabilities.
Set clear strategic priorities, optimize costs, and reorganize for growth.
8. Knowledge push refers to:
A government policy approach to fund high tech cities.
Creating innovation opportunities from the results of organizational knowledge production, for example through R&D.
A venture capital agency.
A software tool for accelerating product development.
9. Mass customization refers to:
A series of innovations specific to non-profit settings such as the Catholic church.
An improved version of Henry Ford’s original approach for car manufacturing.
Spreading an innovation through external support, e.g. strategic alliances and open innovation.
An approach that tries to customise products/servcies to specific user needs without incurring the cost penalties of high variety production.