Wal-Mart recently started selling generic prescription drugs over its stores for $4. It is already covering 38 states throughout the United States and its portfolio includes more than 300 prescription drugs. The question that arises is: does this move from the giant retailer represent a disruptive innovation to traditional pharmacies?
Category: Innovation
Brokering ideas
New ideas are certainly the currency of the new economy, and they are also the fuel for most innovations. Despite that importance, though, many people still associate the generation of ideas with a lone genius, sitting on his desk and coming up with new things from scratch.
Open Innovation
The open innovation approach, that is going beyond the corporate internal R&D for new ideas or products, seems to be gaining traction lately.
Product innovation is not enough
Some time ago on the article “7 Ways to Unlock Innovation” I had already defended the idea that companies must go beyond simple product innovations. BusinessWeek just published an article covering that topic.
The definition of innovation
Probably there are as many definitions of innovation as the number of supposed experts on the field around the world. Reading through my books and papers, though, I realized that I had no comprehensive list of the many definitions I have ever being in contact with, therefore I decided to create one.
Global Innovation Survey
There is a very interesting report from the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton analysing the figures and trends of innovation spending around the world.
Innovation Labs
What is Outside Innovation? According to Patricia Seybold, who wrote a very good book on the subject, “it’s when customers lead the design of your business processes, products, services, and business models. It’s when customers roll up their sleeves to co-design their products and your business. It’s when customers attract other customers to build a vital customer-centric ecosystem around your products and services”.
Do you walk your talk?
Have you ever wondered why most companies, despite being very innovative, struggle to develop new valuable products or services for their customers? I mean, just enter the website of some large organization and you will probably see some “innovation bla bla” like “innovation is one of our core values” or “our innovative solutions will help you…”. In reality the vast of majority of the companies out there are not innovative, they just claim to be.
Disruptive Innovation and Newspapers
What about newspapers? The appearance of online news services, web portals and other media platforms such as blogs and wikis clearly represent a disruptive innovation for the traditional newspaper industry. Will the likes of NY Times and WSJ be able to survive such disruption?
User-Driven Innovation
User-driven innovation is a hot topic. Many companies are starting to realize that innovation can come not only from the Research & Development department but also from the interaction with partners, suppliers and customers.