6 Practices of Innovative Companies

From the Herman Trend Newsletter: BCG also highlights six practices of the most innovative companies and explores how those practices have played out at innovation leaders across a range of industries: 1) Get the customer involved early. 2) Use data to drive tough decision-making. 3) Think strategically about tradeoffs. 4) Ensure senior leadership commitment. 5) Envision innovation as a holistic system. 6) Optimize intellectual property to create value. I think that is a spot-on list.  I was drawn to number 3 – think strategically about tradeoffs.  In dealing with smaller, entrepreneurial companies, I see the founders often fail in this area (fail to the point of liquidating).  It is critical… Read More

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Entrepreneurial Lessons

CareerBuilder.com links to an Entrepreneur.com article that asked… 9 entrepreneurs take a look back at their startup days and reveal what they would have done differently if they knew then what they know now. Great premise.  Here’s the response I enjoyed the most (emphasis mine): “We would have spent more time and money on search engine optimization. Top placement in Google is key to any business in this day and age, and the cost of PPC gets higher every day. In addition, we would have placed more emphasis on employee commissions. We’ve learned over time that commissions and incentives drive employees to bring in more business.” How true that is. … Read More

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