Description
Book SynopsisItâs a paradox: as big companies get better at achieving operational excellence, actual breakthroughs seem to decrease. Itâs the scrappy little startups, with comparatively tiny budgets, that continue to be founts of innovation. Why is it that as industry leaders get better at what they do, they get worse at innovation?
By conducting deep research within companies as diverse as Apple, Google, Pfizer, General Motors, Nike, and Sony, the authors have found the answer: the very pursuit of operational excellence - that is, making oneâs existing business as efficient as it can be - blinds managers to the kinds of disruptive business model changes vital for innovation. These changes could threaten all that hard work. Itâs why Nokia famously killed its smart phone - the company was too invested in âœdumb phones.â Nothing less than a complete redesign and rethinking of the corporation - down to how accountants capture innovation costs and overhead - is necessary to get companies moving again. The authorsâ new model, "the startup corporation,â marries the strengths of corporate scale to the nimbleness of entrepreneurs.
For a model of the new startup corporation, the authors return again and again to Apple, which doesnât have the usual corporate structure and accounting systems. Not every company can be an Apple, but all companies can learn to break the bonds of operational thinking if theyâll take the authorsâ lessons to heart.
