Forbes on Key Business Questions

I stumbled across an article on Forbes discussing “The 20 Most Important Questions In Business”.  The importance of innovation to a businesses strategy is underscored by this list of questions.  Here are some of the questions identified by Forbes that make that very clear:

How good is your value proposition?
What is your product differentiation?
What are the competitive threats?
What are your strengths & weaknesses?
How will you protect your intellectual property?
How committed are you to success?

These questions are interesting because what is more important than merely asking them is what you do about the answers.  For these questions in particular, your strategy and approach to innovation is a key driver in changing the shape of your predictable outcomes.

How are you building innovation competence to extend your value proposition?  What innovations in your product pipeline are creating sustainable differentiation? How do your innovation best practices help you anticipate competition rather than react?  Are your innovation programs capitalizing on your process and technology competencies; are they shoring up the weaknesses in you organization?  Do your innovation programs build persistent value through strong IP, and are you looking for opportunities where competitors have failed to do the same?  Are you doing all of these things with the confidence that you have a sustainable innovation culture that will continue to deliver these benefits?

If your answers to any of these questions are uncertain, then the state of your innovation capabilities does not speak to your commitment to success.  It’s time to make a commitment to innovation as a critical success factor in driving your business.

Comments

[Jim Belfiore]

The end of a year is often time for reflection on goals that require discipline and strategic thinking. In addition to the Forbes article, I found a surprise waiting for me in the latest HBR. Michael Porter, creator of the Porter's Five Forces model of strategic competition analysis, updates his model (first introduced in 1979) with over 25 years of hindsight and study that makes for very interesting (and timely) reading. It is a very interesting companion to the Forbes article.