Davanti Nella Gara, an Italian bicycle company, makes the best racing bikes in the world. But after decades of market dominance, competitors have brought the industry leader back to the Peloton. The company’s second-generation owner longs for retirement, but a tired product lineup is pushing down profits and the firm’s market value will never support his ride into the sunset. The flawed but beloved owner seeks out the counsel of an old friend and successful businessman, who steers him toward a fast and remarkable transformation, one fueled by a relentless focus on innovation excellence. An engaging business novel, Winning Innovation dives into the art and science of innovation; the thrills of the European bike-racing circuit; the vibrant landscape and cuisine of Italy; and a cast of intriguing characters who work to put Davanti on the road to sustained prosperity. The company’s leader isn’t afraid to learn and apply new ideas to reenergize his company, and finds he cares more about his employees than he could ever imagine. A young innovator struggles to see a product idea to fruition as well as rise into management — and he falls in love along the way. A newly promoted R&D director brings teamwork and transparency to product development and aligns the entire company around innovation. With the help of a seasoned and persistent change agent, in just a year, Davanti deploys a well-defined and -sequenced transformation — a complete and seamless process that can be replicated and scaled by most companies. The leader engages associates in pursuit of the right vision and strategy, candidly supporting them all as they unleash their creative sparks, work through personality conflicts, and take on real-world challenges faced by companies every day. They learn and apply traditional R&D principles in new ways (e.g., cost of delay, sprints, fail fast, late start) and successfully leverage emerging innovation and change-management principles (e.g., idea-creation events, knowledge management, workplace humility, visual management, lean project management). And an aligned, three-phase innovation process — from idea creation to technology development and product design — provides the innovation infrastructure the company needs for revenue creation and success beyond racing bikes. From a top-heavy organization dominated by power struggles and finger-pointing emerges a new Davanti Nella Gara — a flattened, innovative company with: Clear vision and endorsed goals and strategy Speed, responsiveness, and agility Widespread, successful creativity Collaboration and teamwork Superior risk management Respect for people Unquestionable ethics Changed leadership and associate behaviors Project management excellence Rapid problem-solving and experimentation Not just the story of an R&D transformation, Winning Innovation illustrates a companywide transformation of a magnitude that only superior R&D can make possible. It may well be the first book to chronologically introduce the principles for a complete innovation excellence transformation along with the parallel people transformation that is necessary for real change to occur. The end result for Davanti Nella Gara is a dominant new culture based on respect and humility, highly efficient processes that will deliver a wealth of innovations, sales, and profits for many years to come, and an owner who leaves a bright future for the people and company he’s known and loved his entire life.

A complete roadmap to a revolution in business excellence founded on innovation Author and successful innovator Nicholas Webb believes we need a revolution in business excellence founded on innovation. In The Innovation Playbook, you will learn why innovations fail, the five rules of customer connectivity, the power of "real open" innovation and customer co-creation, the secret formula for reducing product and market risk, the magic of Future-casting, and so much more. Includes an abundance of anecdotes and examples of successful-and unsuccessful-innovation Shares the 56 ways in which innovations fail Learn the success secrets of "Innovation Superstars" Reduce innovation failure and build speed to market Includes online training a ($150.00 value) that will help you put the theory into practice, The Innovation Playbook will prepare you to get your CIS Certification, as well as to implement a successful innovation culture in corporate life.

This book goes behind the scenes of working innovation labs to distill a rigorous set of best practices. Apply these to unleash the innovation that will give your enterprise a digital competitive advantage.

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy. Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

Innovation is central to business success, yet no other aspect of business is as frustrating and out of control. Instead of occurring in fits and starts and strokes of genius, innovation needs to become an all-the-time event that‘s measurable, reliable, predictable, streamlined, and effective. Structured innovation is a key goal for every organization whereby they more effectively meet the needs of customers and operate more efficiently. Insourcing Innovation demonstrates how to transform business using the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) along with applicable tools and techniques. Providing a practical framework, this book presents the tactical and strategic aspects of TRIZ, its methodology, and its components. Real-world case studies illustrate how TRIZ can be applied in an organization. It also discusses how structured innovation is part of total performance excellence, examining key aspects of business excellence and how they are related.

This book contains a number of case studies that examine the nature and origins of emerging high-end innovation hubs in Africa. It analyses, highlights and draws lessons from some of the most promising and successful innovation cases in Africa today, exploring the key factors driving their successful emergence, growth and future prospects.