Breakthrough Innovation In Your Business

Cashflow Diary™

Nathan Furr is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, where he teaches innovation and technology strategy. He is a recognized expert in the fields of technology strategy, digital transformation, and disruptive innovation. He is the #1 bestselling author of Nail It Then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation, The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization, and the new book LEADING TRANSFORMATION How to Take Chargeof Your Company's Future.

Podcast Highlights

• Who is Nathan Furr?

Nathan cares about the dreams that people have and them getting the chance to pursue those dreams. He started his career in industry and even tried his hand at a start-up where he learned a lot of lessons the hard way. This lead him to ask the question of “how does breakthrough innovation really happen?” and eventually to Silicon Valley. That’s where he stumbled upon the fundamental dilemma that he’s been trying to answer with his books and work.

We live in an environment of uncertainty and change and the tools we use today were designed during the industrial revolution, they were not designed to address an environment of radical uncertainty and hyper change. Uncertainty is the main theme that runs through all of Nathan’s work.

It’s hard to see beyond the fence of your daily life what’s possible.

The driving force behind new tools and frameworks is technology. Technology has lowered the barriers and made the world more dynamic and rapidly changing than ever before.

• Is change accelerating?

Before the industrial revolution there was no such thing as Management, there were no courses you could take, and no business schools. During the 1700’s technology changed the nature of industry and introduced new problems. Business schools were created to solve these new problems.

The question Management tries to solve is “how do I coordinate, how do I optimize, and how do I execute?”

There are more new companies and new inventions with more new people participating in the process than ever before and this is contributing to the environment of dynamism.

This is the golden age for hardware entrepreneurs. The framework has shifted from “how do I coordinate, optimize, and execute on the capture of value?” to one of “how do I create new value?”

• Breakthrough Innovation

The big players are getting bigger and the smaller businesses are growing around the opportunities around mass customization. Many big companies are now looking to work with start-ups.

Software is making the world more modular and allows businesses to work with each other rather than just compete.

There are more automobile related start-ups in the last five years than almost any other category.

• INSEAD

INSEAD was founded to be the Harvard of Europe. Once you get outside the United States, INSEAD is very well known.

Breakthrough innovation crosses borders. We’re all in this world together and we all have to figure out how to deliver efficient, effective service wherever they our customers are.

• Staying On Top Of Change

Nathan found that innovators engage in five fundamental behaviours. The number one behaviour is associating, where they look at other areas of life and applying an idea to another area. There is a lot of innovation that gets stuck in some area that can transform the way business is done in another area.

Observe the world and keep your eyes open. Question and challenge the status quo, notice the world around you and look for problems that can be fixed, experiment and network for ideas.

Digital transformation is not about technology,