Incremental Innovation vs. Brand New
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Emerson Electric had a choice: go after ground-breaking "new-to-the-world" products, or, nominally, "make a third of sales from products released in the past five years (Hindo, 46)." Their decision? Focus in large measure on new-to-the-world (Hindo, 46).
Today, we're waiting feverously to see what Steven Jobs announces for new innovations for the iPhone. Apple has made billions on i-Pods. Neither is a particularly new innovation, although the Apple design process certainly produces enticing products everyone wants.
Who has it right, Apple or Emerson?
By applying design to an older product, Apple resurrected (or should I say, invigorated) the MP3 market. Emerson sees lots of wasted time on incremental change when they are missing the bigger picture.
Gold-plating the product you've had for years doesn't make sense. However, an incremental change in a new market certainly has helped Apple.
Emerson is taking a risk, suspecting that they've been wasting money in incrementalism (Hindo, 46). We'll have to wait a bit to see how their strategy plays out.
Reference
Hindo, Brian. Insight. Far-flung Emerson Electric generates loads of ideas. Now it has a way to sort out the really novel ones. BusinessWeek. 16 June 2008. 46. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_24/b4088046119515.htm?chan=search