How to Create a Competitive Advantage in Any Market Establishing a competitive advantage is the holy grail for every business. Differentiating your offering is the best way for most businesses to do this since very few businesses can establish a cost advantage. Innovation is an excellent way to differentiate but ONLY if you know how ...

An Amazing, Predictable Way to Innovate (That Most Companies Miss): Nail the Customer’s Job I enjoyed reading about a new startup called Visor recently. It’s an app designed to improve the car-buying experience. According to Columbus Business First (11/5/24), “Without a single ad, Visor has attracted some 8,000 users since its August debut, many leaving ...

Why Most Innovation Fails – and How to Fix It Innovation is a buzzword in every industry. CEOs and product leaders pour time and resources into brainstorming, experimenting, and iterating, hoping to create the next big thing. But the results are often disappointing. Why? Because most leaders confuse innovation with creativity and invention. They treat ...

Do You Know the Crux of Your Growth Challenge? Richard P. Rumelt, famed strategy professor and author of The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists, defines the “crux” as the most critical aspect or central issue that must be addressed to unlock the path to achieving your strategic objectives. It’s the pivotal part of the problem ...

The Hard Truth I Learned About Innovation—And How You Can Avoid It I first got involved with innovation professionally back in the early 2000s when I was working with a strategy consulting firm, helping large B2B clients drive revenue growth in their key accounts. Part of my job was to conduct interviews with key account ...

The Hidden Problem That Stops Most Innovation In Its Tracks Misunderstanding Customer Needs = Innovation Failure Innovation often fails because companies don’t truly understand what their customers want. Too many companies optimize existing products, chase fleeting trends, and build features based on gut instinct. This approach turns innovation into a frustrating, costly guessing game. But ...