Editor’s letter

Editor’s letter

Article Type: Editor’s letter From: Strategy & Leadership, Volume 40, Issue 4

I’d like to direct your attention to some exciting ideas in the articles in this issue:

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  In “The battle to counter disruptive competition: continuous innovation vs ‘Good’ management” Stephen Denning proposes:

  “The only way out of the innovator’s dilemma is to change the game being played and adopt a new corporate bottom line in which innovation is a necessity, not an option. Instead of focusing on making money and pursuing the dumbest idea in the world – maximizing shareholder value – the very goal of the firm has to shift to delighting customers through continuous innovation.”

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  In his latest Masterclass, “Getting back to what matters – creating long-term economic and social value,” Brian Leavy compares three complementary sets of insights into what is fundamentally wrong with the current model of capitalism, and what will be needed to put it right:

  One set tracks the evolution of “shareholder capitalism” during the latter part of the 20th century and explains why it has turned out to be so detrimental because shareholder value has assumed priority over customer value. The second set shows business leaders how to restore credibility to capitalism by adopting a view of corporate social responsibility that sees the relationship between business and society as a “win-win” opportunity to create new wealth based on addressing society’s deepest needs. The third set explains why business leaders who simultaneously create economic and social value in a highly authentic and integrated way tend to be the most successful at sustaining high performance over time.

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  In “Time: another frontier of value innovation,” Stan Abraham interviews Adrian Ott, the author of The 24-hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-starved, Always-connected Economy.

  Ott: Time and attention are often overlooked factors in customer decision-making today – which makes learning to put a value on them a potential competitive advantage for companies that recognize this and take it into account when developing new strategies and products.

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  In “How cloud computing enables process and business model innovation,” Saul J. Berman and his IBM co-authors explain how cloud technology has the power to fundamentally shift competitive landscapes by providing a new platform for creating and delivering business value. Six key cloud attributes or business enablers are being used to power business model innovation: cost flexibility, business scalability, market adaptability, masked complexity, context-driven variability and ecosystem connectivity.

And don’t miss the two cases that describe strategic management concepts in practice:

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  “Open innovation helps Whirlpool discover new market opportunities” by Amy Muller and Nate Hutchins.

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  “Building resilience capabilities at ‘Big Brown Box, Inc.’” by Liisa Välikangas and A. Georges L. Romme.

Good reading!

Robert M. RandallEditor