West Words

Innovation is “a creative idea that has been made to work”, writes David Hussey in The Innovation Challenge. “It can be as basic as a procedural change in a distribution system or as complex as entry into a whole new market.” Everybody knows an innovative company when they see one.

In lists of such companies the same names come up again and again – 3m, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, Sony – companies where continual innovation has produced far higher returns than ordinary business investment. 3m’s progressive policy on innovation used to commit it to earning  30% of its revenue from products that had been brought to market within the previous four years. 

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