REINVENTING B2B

This article from BusinessWeek Online has three powerful paragraphs that summarize the chasm between what is required to successfully innovate and how US corporations operate:

"Most operating models don't allow for much innovation because they're structured to drive consistent business results quarter over quarter. To attempt disruptive innovation experiments, leaders must recognize that innovation requires failure, that investments must be made, that people make a difference, and that these bold moves are distinct from business as usual. Therefore, a "second path" must be pioneered that recognizes these differences when it comes to supporting innovation efforts.

Six Sigma won't get you there. Opportunities to achieve competitive advantage through the product quality revolution and its cousin—business-process reengineering, which elevated quality and efficiency concepts above the shop floor and into core business processes and operations—are mostly tapped out. Six Sigma delivered on its inward-focused promise of maximizing corporate operational efficiency, but it leaves us unprepared to shine the focus outside the organization and onto the unmet, unarticulated, even unrealized needs of your customers.

In a like manner, marketing doesn't equal listening. American auto manufacturers sell only 20% of the vehicles in California. How can we sell just 20% of the cars in our own nation's most populous state? Detroit got so focused on marketing the cars it had to sell that it lost sight of techniques to solicit, hear, independently observe, and act upon its customer's needs and desires. This is an important lesson to relearn—no matter what industry you're in."