The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks

Book excerpt: Named one of the "Best Books on Innovation, 2008" by BusinessWeek magazine From the greatest minds in business today comes a groundbreaking new blueprint for executing the next stage of customer-created value. C.K. Prahalad, the world's premier business thinker, and IT scholar M.S. Krishnan unveil the critical missing link in connecting strategy to execution--building organizational capabilities that allow companies to achieve and sustain continuous change and innovation. The New Age of Innovation reveals that the key to creating value and the future growth of every business depends on accessing a global network of resources to co-create unique experiences with customers, one at a time. To achieve this, CEOs, executives, and managers at every level must transform their business processes, technical systems, and supply chain management, implementing key social and technological infrastructure requirements to create an ongoing innovation advantage. In this landmark work, Prahalad and Krishnan explain how to accomplish this shift--one where IT and the management architecture form the corporation's fundamental foundation. This book provides strategies for Redesigning systems to co-create value with customers and connect all parts of a firm to this process Measuring individual behavior through smart analytics Ceaselessly improving the flexibility and efficiency in all customer-facing and back-end processes Treating all involved individuals--customers, employees, investors, suppliers--as unique Working across cultures and time-zones in a seamless global network Building teams that are capable of providing high-quality, low-cost solutions rapidly To successfully compete on the battlefields of 21st-century business, companies must reinvent their processes and culture in order to sustain innovative solutions. The New Age of Innovation is a complete program for achieving this transformation to meet the needs of the end consumer of the future.