Motorolla, Blockbuster, Palm, etc... Every one of these companies "had it all" and "lost it all". When I was younger and heard the term, "If a business isn't growing it's dying" I thought it was stupid. I finally get it.
● If a business isn't diversifying its risks and assets it can lose them all. Similar to family trees, too few kids and a single war or natural disaster can wipe out the whole family and permanently end their branch of their family tree.
● Don't be afraid to pivot. Nintendo was originally a playing card company. Samsung was originally a trading company. Squaresoft was originally a power line construction company.
● Be your own competition. If a new product in the company destroys the old products, that's a good thing. The company still wins. When you are your own competitor weather you win or lose, you still win.
>> Be your own competition. If a new product in the company destroys the old products, that's a good thing. The company still wins. When you are your own competitor weather you win or lose, you still win.
Did you read the part about internal fiefdoms competing for a single pool of research money? Turning your own company and your own workers against each other is the classic way of burning all of your human resources (Microsoft Stack Ranking, Fall of Motorola, Fall of Nokia...)
You can't have your sectors compete by doing similar things.
At the same time, you have to float innovations up when they appear.
Competition has to mean empowerment, not bean-counting and tug-of-war
Microsoft could have invented the tablet, but of course the Windows division cut it off (there's an MS story about that which I can't find right now)
And the vision from above has to be clear and certain, otherwise you end with MS Surface, Zune, etc
Apple's product development is full of bumps and fights as well, but they listen to the innovators, not the naysayers or the people who think the iPad couldn't be shipped without an Office app
> Microsoft could have invented the tablet, but of course the Windows division cut it off (there's an MS story about that which I can't find right now)
Microsoft _did_ invent the tablet. PC Tablet was around in Windows XP. It had gesture support and handwriting recognition since 2001.
Technology isn't about making new technologies unfortunately. Its about marketing new technologies and convincing tons of people to buy your stuff. It doesn't matter if you invented it first, aside from maybe the occasional Patents War...
> And the vision from above has to be clear and certain, otherwise you end with MS Surface, Zune, etc
Surface is one of the few things from Microsoft that is actually succeeding right now btw. But in case, innovation is literally about embracing the unknown before you know what to do with it.
There cannot be any "clear and certain" vision on innovative products. Otherwise, it wasn't really innovative to begin with.
I dunno, it just seems like your comment was especially "buzzwordy". In my experience, true innovation is hard as all heck to back, because nobody "gets" it. Marketing is a major problem... not just marketing to the rest of the world but also selling an innovation to your direct superior within your own team.
● If a business isn't diversifying its risks and assets it can lose them all. Similar to family trees, too few kids and a single war or natural disaster can wipe out the whole family and permanently end their branch of their family tree.
● Don't be afraid to pivot. Nintendo was originally a playing card company. Samsung was originally a trading company. Squaresoft was originally a power line construction company.
● Be your own competition. If a new product in the company destroys the old products, that's a good thing. The company still wins. When you are your own competitor weather you win or lose, you still win.