The Link Between Innovation and Strategy
Innovation is usually defined as the successful commercial exploitation of new ideas or simply as the successful implementation of new ideas. This encompasses ideas that are ‘new to the world’, ‘new to an industry’ or merely ‘new to a particular firm’. The prominence given to the role of innovation in strategy is to a large extent the result of the prevailing social and economic conditions. In what Peter Drucker – the most influential management thinker of the second-half of the twentieth century – termed the ‘knowledge economy’ that has emerged due to the rise of the service industry and decline of manufacturing since the end of the Second World War, business organizations have increasingly had to react to change more rapidly if they wish to succeed in the marketplace. Indeed, so important is the successful implementation of new ideas that Drucker famously reflected that: ‘Business has only two basic functions Continue reading