Product Innovation Strategy Pure & Simple

"Change is the raw material of product innovation."

"Product innovation is a _deliberate process_ and is viewed as such by long-lived, successful companies"

"Four distinct steps: Search, Assessment, Development, Pursuit."

"Never worship at the alter of the cash cow."

"If failures can be exacerbated, why can't successes be exploited?"

""What bottlenecks, weak links, or missing links are there in these processes and how can we eliminate them?""

"Rather than wait for the convergence to occur, it is much better to cause it to happen."

"This search area is unique in that it is the only one that can be consciously manipulated."

"Pure invention often takes large amounts of research and experimentation, as well as a long time to develop."

"Many organizations, even ones who do not innovate well, have difficulty categorizing the "types" of new products they create."

"Not all opportunities are worth pursuing."

"Cost, Benefit, Strategic Fit, and Difficulty of Implementation."

"The development step is the transition to the formal pursuit, or introduction, of the new opportunity."

"Innovative companies take prudent risk, not excessive risk."

"Opportunity pursuit should be an organic and dynamic process, changing as implementation moves forward and adapting to new conditions as necessary."

"What determines which way the strategy will go are the _areas of excellence_ that a company _deliberately cultivates_ over time to keep the strategy strong and healthy and give it an edge in the marketplace."

"The key to the creation of concepts for new-to-the-market products is the ability to envision what the future business arena that will face the company in the future will look like."

"The world's most successful companies today are practicing market fragmentation."

"Create products that change the rules of play."

"Management's role is to select the "languages" that it wishes its people to speak while conducting business on behalf of the organization."

"Management's challenge, then, is to understand the process of new product/market creation and innovative thinking in order to institutionalize it as a formal activity in the organization."