Executing on Innovation

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I am a fan of Dr. Vijay Govindarajan’s work on strategy and innovation.  You can find his website here, which lists his biography, research and publications.  He has an innate ability to communicate complex concepts clearly, while also showing how his research contributes to solving complex strategy problems.

Today Harvard Business Publishing released the following video interview where Vijay discusses his latest book, The Other Side of Innovation – Solving the Execution Challenge.   You can download a sample chapter here for free. At just over 14 minutes, the video is worth watching and time well spent.

Recessions Are A Catalyst Of Innovation

He states that in the extensive research he did of what factors most lead to innovation occurring in the last 100 years, recessions were one of the more powerful catalysts.  More specifically, companies who continue to invest in entirely new technologies cause massive disruption to market landscapes when economies return to growth cycles.  The extensive investment in programming languages that lead to more efficient, secure and scalable SaaS applications are a case in point.