Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity

5Accelerating Success

I feel the need. The need for speed!

—Maverick (played by Tom Cruise) in the movie Top Gun

The Need for Speed

Because we pursue innovation in a competitive marketplace, speed matters. The faster that great ideas get to market, the faster we earn money, build our brand, and extend our reach into the future.

Weeks or months of delay can be hugely costly; longer delays can even be fatal, for the firm that gets the right product to market quickest is in the best position to gain significant advantage.

There may be little or no market share left for the laggards.

Technology Markets Are Winner Take All

In many markets, particularly those that have a significant technology component, market structures tend toward a winner-take-all dynamic. Many business strategists believe that the number of winner-take-all markets is increasing because technology advantages can create massive barriers to competition. In the past, for example, a wide variety of local stores existed within a given geographic region, but today because of better transportation, logistics, telecommunications, and information technology systems, leading firms can extend their lead, effectively locking local players out. Hence, selling books has transitioned from local bookshops to Amazon.com and its Kindle, the clear winner in digital book readers.

Another example of a winner-take-all market ...