Harvard Business School Press, 2005 (with Chris Trimble).
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How to Build a Breakthrough New Business within a Profitable Old One
Even world-class companies with successful business models eventually hit the ceiling on growth. That's what makes emerging industries so attractive. These markets represent huge opportunities for capturing long term growth and competitive advantage. But because they lack a proven formula for making a profit, they are risky and expensive—with dire consequences for failure.
Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble argue that every organization's survival depends on strategic experiments that target such untested markets, but few firms understand how to implement them successfully. Too many managers think that a great idea is enough to get them from business plan to profitability, but somewhere in the middle of the innovation process, most organizations stumble. In Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, Govindarajan and Trimble reveal where firms go wrong on their journey from idea to execution—and outline exactly what it takes to build a breakthrough business while sustaining excellence in an existing one.
Based on an in-depth, multiyear research study of innovative initiatives at ten large corporations, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble identify three central challenges to strategic innovation: