Business for the Environment

Innovation

Five Gates to Innovation

by William J. Holstein

Corning Inc.’s process for developing inventive products actually works, a claim that few companies can make.

The Elusive Right Path to Engineering Offshoring

by Vikas Sehgal, Sunil Sachan, and
Ron Kyslinger

Farming out product design and development can be a risky venture, as many organizations have learned the hard way. Here are five steps to making it work.

Profits Down, Spending Steady: The Global Innovation 1000

by Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff

Booz & Company’s annual study of the world’s biggest corporate R&D spenders finds that most companies have stuck with their innovation programs despite the recession — and many are boosting spending to compete more effectively in the upturn.

Integrated Innovation at Pitney Bowes

by David Dobson

In tough times, this venerable mail and documents company boosted not only its R&D spending but the creativity of its approach.

The Evolution of Technology

To economist W. Brian Arthur, the value of innovation depends on harnessing the natural progression of shared knowledge.

Staying on Your Toes

Companies should deliberately disrupt the normal flow of work at multiple levels, because it can lead to breakthroughs for the organization.

The Promise (and Perils) of Open Collaboration

Companies like IBM and P&G have prospered by opening their borders, but there are cautionary lessons from the quality movement of the 1980s.

Are You Killing Enough Ideas?

Companies can improve their innovation performance by getting their formal and informal organizations in sync.

The Thought Leader Interview: Tim Brown

The CEO of Silicon Valley–based design firm IDEO contends that elegant, customer-centric design stems from a simple set of thinking practices.

Books in Brief: The Upside of Downturns

A review of The Silver Lining, by Scott D. Anthony.

Debugging the Supply Chain

Ten-year-old Cricket Communications found that even the oft overlooked supply chain can be a lucrative target for innovation.

The Promise of In-market Innovation

A new strategy recommends putting out new products in large volume and letting the marketplace — not focus groups — separate winners from losers.

How to Shut Down a Project Gracefully

Companies that rely on innovation for growth must learn to live with failure. But lack of commercial success does not have to be a terrible result.

Dov Frohman Leads the Hard Way

The management author and former CEO of Intel Israel on the need to do the unexpected and attempt the impossible.

Archive of Innovation articles