Profit & Purpose

Profit & Purpose
Author: Kyle Westaway
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2014-08-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118708555

Why has Warby Parker been able to make such dramatic inroads against the behemoths in the long established eyeglass market? How has Method revolutionized the soap aisle? Amid the cacophony of online retailers, why has Etsy seen such explosive growth, with 2013 annual sales north of $1 billion? These companies all have been disruptive because they are operating from a strong social/environmental purpose. They are proving a counterintuitive truth – purpose can drive profits. But it’s not just innovative startups that are getting in on the action. Blue chip companies such as Nike, Coca-Cola and IBM are innovating within their organization to create a positive social and environmental impact globally. This is not a trend. It’s the future of business. Based on in-depth interviews with founders, Profit & Purpose profiles a number of the most successful pioneers of this new way forward, telling the stories of thirteen social enterprises ranging from non-profits like Charity:Water and DonorsChoose.org, to for-profits, like Method and Burts Bees; from startups like Etsy and Warby Parker, to multinational corporations with market capitalizations in the hundreds of billions, like Coca-Cola, IBM and Nike. Kyle Westaway digs beneath the public stories of these organizations’ success to reveal how they have harness the power of purpose. Taking readers behind the scenes, he shows how these leading social enterprises progressed from concept to scale, how they overcame common pitfalls, and how they managed to find an optimal balance between their mission and their business mandates. Westaway reveals that though there is no magic bullet formula that guarantees success, there are seven core practices that distinguish these market leaders from the pack of contenders. They are: DISCOVER THROUGH CURIOSITY // Finding the right opportunity catalyzes impact. DESIGN WITH HUMILTY // Prioritizing users creates killer products. BUILD THROUGH HUSTLE // Rallying people creates critical momentum for launch. FUND BY COMMITMENT // Aligning funders around a vision creates true partnerships. CONNECT WITH AUTHENTICITY // Authentic connection builds a movement. SCALE THROUGH COMMUNITY // Focusing on culture ensures smart growth. EVALUATE WITH HONESTY // Honest measurement ensures continual improvement. Profit & Purpose takes the literature on social entrepreneurship an important step forward, providing the practical tools for turning good intentions into breakaway success.

SAP Next-Gen

SAP Next-Gen
Author: Bernd Welz
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2018-04-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3319725742

This book presents SAP Next-Gen, an innovation community for SAP Leonardo. It is intended for next generation business leaders, Chief Digital Officers, Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Information Officers and IT professionals who are defining the vision, strategy, technologies and organizational changes needed to drive their exponential enterprise and to innovate with purpose. The book opens with an introduction to turning bold ideas into reality with a purpose-driven mindset supporting the 17 United Nations Global Goals. Part 1 focuses on what’s at stake including Digital - The New Normal, Exponential Growth, and Innovation in the 21st century. Part 2 introduces readers to the SAP Next-Gen matchmaking model, and readers are invited to join SAP Next-Gen clubs for industries, technologies, and methodologies. Readers also learn about the Silicon Valleys of the world, make vs. buy vs. join, and where to learn more and get engaged with SAP Next-Gen. SAP Next-Gen is an innovation community for SAP Leonardo supporting SAP’s 355,000+ customers across 25 industries in 180+ countries. SAP Next-Gen enables customers and partners to connect with academic thought leaders, researchers, and students in the SAP Next-Gen network of 3,200+ educational institutions across 111 countries worldwide, as well as with startups, tech community partners, venture firms, purpose driven partners, and SAP experts.

The Innovation Mode

The Innovation Mode
Author: George Krasadakis
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-07-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030451399

This book presents unique insights and advice on defining and managing the innovation transformation journey. Using novel ideas, examples and best practices, it empowers management executives at all levels to drive cultural, technological and organizational changes toward innovation. Covering modern innovation techniques, tools, programs and strategies, it focuses on the role of the latest technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence to discover, handle and manage ideas), methodologies (including Agile Engineering and Rapid Prototyping) and combinations of these (like hackathons or gamification). At the same time, it highlights the importance of culture and provides suggestions on how to build it. In the era of AI and the unprecedented pace of technology evolution, companies need to become truly innovative in order to survive. The transformation toward an innovation-led company is difficult – it requires a strong leadership and culture, advanced technologies and well-designed programs. The book is based on the author’s long-term experience and novel ideas, and reflects two decades of startup, consulting and corporate leadership experience. It is intended for business, technology, and innovation leaders.

General Purpose Technology, Spin-Out, and Innovation

General Purpose Technology, Spin-Out, and Innovation
Author: Hiroshi Shimizu
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2019-05-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9811337144

This book focuses on exploring the relationship between spin-outs from incumbents and the patterns of innovation in general purpose technology. Do spin-outs really promote innovation? What happens if star scientists leave the incumbents and establish a startup to target untapped markets? Entrepreneurial spin-outs have been recognized as an engine of innovation. General purpose technology, such as the steam engine in the Industrial Revolution, has been considered an engine of growth. This book provides new perspectives on how entrepreneurial spin-outs shape the patterns of innovation in general purpose technology by integrating theoretical findings in industrial organizations and includes innovation studies and detailed evidence from a longitudinal case study. Concretely, by longitudinally exploring the technological development of laser diodes in the USA and Japan, this study examines how the existence or absence of an entrepreneurial strategic choice for spin-outs influences the patterns of subsequent technological development. The longitudinal analysis in this book shows that spin-outs could hinder the subsequent development of existing technology when that technology is still at a nascent level, because the cumulative effects of technological development could disappear if research and development personnel leave their parent firms in order to target different sub-markets. The findings of this book show that institutional settings designed to promote spin-outs do not necessarily promote innovation. The book offers novel theoretical insights into the relationship between institutions promoting spin-outs and the developments of general purpose technology.

The Change Maker's Playbook

The Change Maker's Playbook
Author: Amy J. Radin
Publisher: City Point Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1947951203

2020 Book Excellence Award Winner How any leader can deliver business-changing innovation now. Any leader in any size company, no matter the size or sector, feels the pressure to innovate, find new ideas and business models, and create enduring customer value. There is no one formula or set process to find and execute the ideas that achieve these goals; customers set moving targets, shareholders are unforgiving and demanding, and society expects companies to care about much more than the bottom line. The fast and furious forces of change stimulated by technology, demographics, lifestyles, and economic, environmental, political and regulatory impacts -- or any number of these in combination – are easy to see. They are easy to talk about. They are easy to intellectualize. The problem? The answers are hard to execute and require nuanced combinations of leadership, skills, strategy and tactics. On top of that, innovation has moved from an abstraction that will matter at some distant date to a front-and-center deliverable that must show evidence of impact in the space of the calendar quarter. In the stories, tools, techniques and advice inside The Change Maker’s Playbook, leaders will find tangible steps to find and safeguard the plans that will deliver the sustainable business-changing impacts – new customers, new relationships, new sources of value and growth— their businesses need. Separated from the pack of academic and consultant innovation theories, Radin’s approach stems from her own experience sitting in the innovation hot seat at some of the world’s most demanding companies and is bolstered by interviews with 50 corporate executives, founders and startup investors representing media, e-commerce, payments, healthcare, government, professional services, and not-for-profit sectors. The book walks readers through Radin’s adaptive, 9-part framework, engaging them in ready-to-apply techniques. Her work shows leaders how to find the big ideas that will meaningfully address customer needs, take the insight from idea through implementation in a way that delivers in the short and long-term for the organization, and lead effectively through the obstacles that tend to derail or diminish innovation. Three phases – Seeking, Seeding and Scaling – organize the framework within an intuitive, logical and useable format, with concrete actions outlined every step of the way. The answer to the dilemma every business faces today is that innovation is exhilarating, rewarding and even fun when it is approached as a unique challenge, but it can also be polarizing, unpredictable, and scary. Success requires that leaders rethink how they lead innovation. Leaders know they must set aside preconceived notions of what works, and look to those who have already walked in their shoes. This is why The Change Maker’s Playbook was written, and why it will become an ongoing resource for any innovation leader. Table of Contents: Foreword The Change Maker’s Framework (image) Introduction Part I: Seeking Chapter 1: Discovering Real Problems That Matter Chapter 2: Purpose, Passion, Promise and Positioning Chapter 3: The Art Of Being Resourceful Part II: Seeding Chapter 4: Prototype, Test, Learn, Iterate Chapter 5: Business Model Linchpins Chapter 6: The Green Light Moment Part III: Scaling Chapter 7: Launch Chapter 8: Testing and Experimenting Chapter 9: Anticipating and Adapting Epilogue Acknowledgements Bibliography

Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire

Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire
Author: Braden Kelley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2010-10-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470621672

Essential strategies to transform your organization and boost your profits Want to recapture your organization's original innovative spirit? Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire helps you remove the obstacles that have crippled the innovation superpowers that made your organization successful in the first place. Helps you identify the blockages hindering innovation within your organization Reveals the fundamental changes that will help your business rebuild its hidden or lost innovation capabilities Explores leading innovation theories you can apply right away-without expensive consultants Get the strategies you need to remove innovation barriers, increase profits-and change the way you do business.

Creative Strategy

Creative Strategy
Author: William Duggan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2014-09-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0231160534

William DugganÕs 2007 book, Strategic Intuition, showed how innovation really happens in business and other fields and how that matches what modern neuroscience tells us about how creative ideas form in the human mind. In his new book, Creative Strategy, Duggan offers a step-by-step guide to help individuals and organizations put that same method to work for their own innovations. DugganÕs book solves the most important problem of how innovation actually happens. Other methods of creativity, strategy, and innovation explain how to research and analyze a situation, but they donÕt guide toward the next step: developing a creative idea for what to do. Or they rely on the magic of ÒbrainstormingÓÑjust tossing out ideas. Instead, Duggan shows how creative strategy follows the natural three-step method of the human brain: breaking down a problem into parts and then searching for past examples to create a new combination to solve the problem. ThatÕs how innovation really happens. Duggan explains how to follow these three steps to innovate in business and any other field as an individual, a team, or a whole company. The crucial middle stepÑthe search for past examplesÑtakes readers beyond their own brain to a Òwhat-works scanÓ of what others have done within and outside of the company, industry, and country. It is a global search for good ideas to combine as a new innovation. Duggan illustrates creative strategy through real-world cases of innovation that use the same method: from Netflix to Edison, from Google to Henry Ford. He also shows how to integrate creative strategy into other methods you might currently use, such as PorterÕs Five Forces or Design Thinking. Creative Strategy takes the mystery out of innovation and puts it within your grasp.

The Idea Factory

The Idea Factory
Author: Jon Gertner
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2012-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1101561084

The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies “Filled with colorful characters and inspiring lessons . . . The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our time: What causes innovation?” —Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review “Compelling . . . Gertner's book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.” —The Wall Street Journal From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been touched by Bell Labs. In The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men-Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker-who spent their careers at Bell Labs. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.

Fearless Innovation

Fearless Innovation
Author: Alex Goryachev
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-01-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 111957952X

Is Innovation just an overused buzzword? A waste of time? A mere marketing ploy? Author Alex Goryachev has a simple, resounding response to such questions: No! The Fourth Industrial Revolution is driving change at an unprecedented pace, level, and intensity that is impacting businesses across industries, not to mention our everyday lives. We are rapidly blurring the physical and the digital, transforming the way we live and, in some sense, what it even means to be human. Whether we run a startup or multinational, a nonprofit or academic institution, a city or a whole country, we need to embrace this change to not just survive but thrive under these new realities. In Fearless Innovation, Cisco’s Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Programs explores how, no matter their function, leaders and managers can cut through the noise to understand change and deliver real results. Goryachev’s actionable, consistent, and timeless innovation principles offer a blueprint to driving growth, enacting change, increasing the bottom line, and creating clear measurable value. Featuring diverse case studies of some of today’s most innovative organizations, historical observations, first-hand experience, and a look at where innovation is thriving, and why, this down-to-earth guide provides advice and clear steps on how to: Get teams to embrace innovation beyond empty slogans Focus on execution of innovation through leadership and strategy Measure the real effects of innovation to showcase ROI and attract investment Break down org silos by empowering effective, diverse, and inclusive teams Drive co-innovation through win-win ecosystem-wide partnerships Organize innovation teams and orchestrate outcomes by leveraging organizational DNA Communicate the value of innovation to differentiate ourselves from competition Written for any organization that wants to stay relevant in the 21st Century, and even beyond, Fearless Innovation offers a step-by-step guide for getting past the confusion, overcoming fear, and getting down to business to create an environment of true innovation.