Empowered product teams and metered funding

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Traditional management teaching has emphasized creating long-term competitive advantage through operational excellence and Research and Development (R&D) investments to create “innovation”.

However, as discussed in The Corporate Startup, R&D investments don’t necessarily cause nor correlate with innovation.

That’s because R&D is usually just money invested in generating ideas. While idea generation is a fundamental element in any innovation process, it doesn’t represent innovation itself.

Innovation happens when you transform those great ideas and inspiring concepts into profitable and sustainable business models that create value for your customers and capture value for your company.

Misunderstanding this results in one of the biggest innovation myths: “Big returns require big bets”. As Tendayi Viki puts it:

“Innovation is only expensive if you use traditional business planning to make investment decisions…