Search results

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.

Over the last 2,000 years, critical innovations have transformed small regions into global powers. But these powers have faded when they did not embrace the next big innovation. Gerard J. Tellis and Stav Rosenzweig argue that openness to new ideas and people, empowerment of individuals and competition are key drivers in the development and adoption of transformative innovations. These innovations, in turn, fuel economic growth, national dominance and global leadership. In How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations, Tellis and Rosenzweig examine the transformative qualities of concrete in Rome; swift equine warfare in Mongolia; critical navigational innovations in the golden ages of Chinese, Venetian, Portuguese and Dutch empires; the patent system and steam engine in Britain; and mass production in the United States of America

Abstract
Online chatter can strongly affect companies by boosting or slowing down sales of commented products, and user generated content even affects stock prices. An analysis of almost 350,000 consumer reviews and product ratings for 15 brands on popular websites showed some interesting effects: Having a higher volume of user comments, regardless of their assessment, was a strong indication of an increase in stock prices. The researchers also found negative reviews had a stronger impact than positive reviews. According to the results, negative chatter could erode about $1.4 million from the average market capitalization over the short term and $3.3 million over the 15 days after it appeared. To better estimate the dollar value of the findings, the researchers calculated possible profits for an initial investment of $100 million. They either sold or bought stock on a daily basis depending on the prevailing valence of the chatter from the previous day. The overall gains using this strategy yielded an average annual profit of $7.9 million over the four years in the sample. With this result, the researchers beat the Standard & Poor's 500 index by 8 % by buying stock on positive chatter and short-selling it after negative chatter.

Abstract
In many industries, new technologies represent a serious threat to established companies. If underestimated, they can endanger their survival. Even if the chances of being disrupted are rather low, companies are well advised to watch out for emerging trends. A large-scale study analyzed the technological evolution of seven markets over several decades and found surprising results, which were not always in line with the most common theories on the topic.
The researcher observed that it was not always easy to predict which technology would ultimately prevail because old and new technologies regularly coexisted for some time and evolution was often erratic. New technologies were introduced both by incumbents and newcomers to the market. Chances of success were higher when the new technology was priced lower than the established technology, but price was less important than quality. Technologies with higher introduction prices also succeeded when they were superior.
New technologies always introduced new dimensions of importance, which gained importance in competition over time.
In many cases it was not the pioneer who ultimately succeeded with the new technology. It seems important to believe and invest in new technology, and to not abandon it too early. Further, companies might consider a "self-cannibalization strategy" during the times of transition from the old to the new technology.

Abstract
In recent years, with some early entrants to a market commanding huge market shares, critics have wondered whether the best quality products win in the market place. Early entrants can gain a position of wide-spread acceptance among users. The fact that a critical mass already uses the product might prompt new consumers to snowball onto this early choice leading to consumer lock-in. Many economists fear that such "network effects" may enable inferior products to defend their entrenched positions even against higher quality alternatives. This article tests the validity of this premise in 19 high-tech markets including hardware, software, and services.
Results indicate that contrary to the above fear, healthy market evolution occurs in most cases without regulatory intervention. Better quality entrants gain market dominance within three to five years of entry. The findings also show that it makes sense to invest in developing high quality products even if the market seems dominated by an entrenched industry leader and that network effects even increase market efficiency in some cases