Nicholas Carr came into wide notoriety by authoring a paper and a book with the conjecture that ‚ÄúIT doesn’t matter‚Äù. On the whole ‚ÄúIT doesn’t matter‚Äù thing ‚Äì he defined IT very narrowly, and then showed where his narrow version of IT would not give a company a sustainable competitive advantage in the future. Fortunately, IT is a very wide field (more than running server farms) and will survive and matter.
Anyway, he makes a good point in this article in the WSJ…
Maybe don’t have to “Innovate Everywhere” Рas seems to be the buzz word and buzz-phrase these days. But, again, I guess it comes down to how you define innovation.
If innovation means “think of ways to do things better and more efficiently” – then innovation belongs everywhere.
In the sense that innovation is experimentation in IT and in business models, then some focus may be needed. The focus comes from your company’s strategic decisions on “what kind of company are we” and “where do we bring a unique value proposition to the marketplace”.
But, I can definitely see value in havering controlled processes to make sure that the areas you concentrate your innovation time and resources on – are strategically significant. Focused Innovation, I can see value in that.
You have to connect your innovation initiatives and your innovation investments to your broader business strategy, and look at those areas where you are going to get, or think you can get, a competitive advantage.
For some companies, the highest potential areas for innovation may be in its manufacturing processes or in the way it manages its supply chain. For other companies, it may be in their products themselves. For still other companies, it could be in their branding and marketing areas.
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