Innovation that fits Moving Beyond the Fads to Choose the RIGHT Innovation Strategy for Your Business

Over the past decade, companies have tried one new strategy after another to promote innovation: corporate venturing and VC funds, intrapreneuring, patenting and IP licensing, innovation-by-alliance, innovation-by-acquisition, spinouts, spin-ins, and many more. By and large, they've failed. However, innovation is even more urgently necessary than it's ever been. Now, three leading experts on commercializing innovation systematically sort through the wreckage of yesterday's strategies, learning lessons and identifying ideas worth preserving and adapting. To prepare this book, the authors thoroughly examined the record of more than 250 innovation programs from organizations of widely differing sizes and industries, from 1998 through 2003. Based on this unprecedented research, they reveal the right time to use each innovation 'arrow' in your quiver, how to account for contingencies and risks, and how to focus on core innovation challenges -- not just superficial symptoms. Along the way, the authors define a focused, integrated model for innovation: one that is more nuanced and complex, but also better-grounded, more durable, and far more effective.

Acknowledgments. About the Authors. 1. Making Sense of Innovation Fads and Fashions. Innovation Excitement, Then Disillusionment Reconsidering Innovations in Innovation Bringing Silicon Valley Inside Spinnovation Virtual Reality: Patenting, IP, and “Asset-Lite” Shared Creation If You Can't Build It, Buy It Mixed Results: What Exactly Is It? The Allure of Innovations in Innovation Background and Overview 2. Corporate Venturing: Best of Both Worlds or Venturing Too Far? Breaking the Old Molds The Disappointing Record of Corporate Ventures The Consummate Corporate Venture Capitalist Core Problems with Corporate Venturing Can You Be Too Free? Diverging Approaches Toward Cars of the Future An Established Operating Company Is Not a VC Portfolio More Mature CVC Approaches The Need for Core Venturing 3. The Virtual Asset-Lite Model: Intellectual Property Licensing. The Old Economy: Real Companies, Real Products Intellectual Property Rules IBM = IPM (Intellectual Property Management) The “Knowing” and “Doing” Connection The Secret of Life (Patent Pending) Itself If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? Limitations of the IP-Centric Model Size Matters: Scaling Intellectual Property IP as a Beginning, Not the End Turning Licensing Inside-Out The Ins and Outs of In-Licensing The Ambiguity of Intangibles In-Licensing: Hollowing Out the Core? Bottom Line: How Real Is the IP Revolution? The Future of Innovation as IP Licensing 4. Innovation by Alliance: Reconsidering Innovation Collaboration. The Perils of Partnering Collaborating to Compete Consortium Dysfunctions The Attraction of Open Innovation Collaboration The Elusive Symbiosis of Innovation Alliances Joint Venturing Lessons Learned Toward More Focused Innovation Alliances Pursuing Direct, Active, Engaged Partnerships Avoiding Joint Problems 5. R D by M A: Innovation by Acquisition. Why the Acquisition Boom? Cisco the Serial Acquirer Changing R D Paradigms Need for Speed, Technology, and Talent The Deal-Making Denouement Hangover from an R D M A Binge Talented Competition: Palm Versus Handspring Buying Innovation Still Can Be a Good Deal A Durable Part of a Core Innovation Strategy Limits of Innovation by Acquisition 6. Spinnovation: Liberating Value or Spinning Out of Control? Liberating Innovation? Spinning Out of Control Spin.com: How Not to Spin The Umbilical-Cord Spinout Navigating a Spinout Employing Spin Control A Tale of Online Travel Agents The Right Spin 7. Conclusion: Toward a New Model for Innovation. Core Complexity Transforming the Core: Internalizing Radical Innovation Fueling Core Innovation from Inside and Outside Importance of Portfolio and Process Endnotes. Index.