Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 17, 2012

Innovation, in operations, products, business models and ecosystems, isn't merely a competitive advantage, it's the competitive advantage. And when innovation programs do get launched, like an internal venture fund or an idea wiki, they tend to either be organizationally isolated or easily marginalized.

Innovation 16

Innovation Process Competitive Advantage McKinsey 16

Harvard Business Review

JULY 25, 2012

In the case of venture-funded companies, which have little operating experience and untested ideas, the bargain is both the idea and the people, with the latter more important than the former. Why, then, destroy one asset to "improve" another?

Venture Capitalist 16

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Gordon CEO 16

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2011

In effect, they are rolling the dice in the hope of hitting the jackpot — but willing to take the slim odds because of their strong belief in the new venture, the adrenaline rush of living on the edge, or the potential size of the prize.

Innovation 16

Innovation Company Venture Funding Follow-up 16

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2016

Operations in a Connected World. But it turns out these methods don’t just have to do with technology and operations. But this is not nearly frequent enough for Deere and companies facing fierce competition for rare technical talent from venture-funded startups and big software and services competitors like Amazon and Google.

Morale 15

Morale Metrics Motivation Venture Funding 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2011

It crashes the latest version of the operating system that just got installed. We tried it at the NewSchools Venture Fund, where I used to work. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. It doesn't work on the new hardware the school just bought.

Education 16

Education Innovation Entrepreneur Venture Funding 16

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2014

In January 2014 IBM announced they were spending $1 billion to launch the Watson Group , including a $100 million venture fund to support start-ups and businesses that are building Watson-powered apps using the “ Watson Developers Cloud.” With the entrepreneur ecosystem, we are behaving more like a Silicon Valley startup.

Venture Funding 15

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Agility Business Model 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 29, 2013

Greg Gianforte, the founder of RightNow, told me years ago that one of the best decisions he made was to build his engineering operation in Montana. Omniture has been acquired by Adobe, and was venture-funded by Silicon Valley firms such as Hummer Winblad. Costs are low. Quality of life is high. Attrition is non-existent.

Venture Funding 9

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Attrition Engineering 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

BlueArc was venture-funded, but in 2008 VC money was getting hard to find. However, cash flow from operations had shifted from positive to negative, the company’s cash pile was dwindling, and the new product would demand R&D investment. That helped BlueArc raise another $28 million in VC funds.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2018

Corporate executives seek to inject “Silicon Valley DNA” into their cultures, and policy makers point to venture-funded entrepreneurship as a solution for all manner of problems. Another possibility may be corporate venture funds , which often have the technical expertise to evaluate hard tech investments.

Technology 8

Technology Venture Funding Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 10, 2013

I met Slovenian entrepreneur, Sandi Cesko, in 2007 when his Ljubljana -based multi-channel retail operation, Studio Moderna , had about $70 million in sales. Piecemeal policies, like angel tax credits, loan guarantees, reduced payroll taxes, direct investments, government venture funds, etc., Even better.

Entrepreneur 10

Entrepreneur IPO Incentives Venture Capitalist 10

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

In the first article in this series, I showed some striking numbers to stress what many inferred: there are real costs to locating operations outside of a startup super-hub (San Francisco Bay, New York, or Boston). The short version: it’s just plain harder to get funding, sell your business, or simply survive outside of the super-hubs.

Entrepreneur 9

Entrepreneur Venture Funding Finance Engineering 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 10, 2018

This enables engineers to fine-tune a “high-resolution blast” so that it produces more predictably sized rock and dirt for subsequent loading, hauling and grinding, which together account for most of a mine’s operational costs.

B2B 8

B2B Chemicals Venture Funding Engineering 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

Only around 20% of technologies funded by CVC&A grab enough attention of business units to start co-innovation pilot projects with portfolio startups. Third, corporate VCs and accelerators are costly and complex to operate, turning them into a slow and expensive innovation tool.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Meyer Innovation Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

Balance: the mix of different types of innova­tion (product, service, pricing, distribution, operations, etc.); differ­ent risk cate­go­ries (incremental improvements versus speculative ventures); and differ­ent time horizons. Efficiency: changes over time in the ratio of innovation outputs to inputs.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Engineering Supply Chain 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 4, 2013

What makes it all that more interesting, is that those fictional numbers aren't even close to the staggering reality of how many drones are in operation. He recently left his post at Wired to work on his own passion project- (DIY Drones )-turned-startup ( 3D Robotics ), which recently raised five million dollars in venture funding.

Supply Chain 12

Supply Chain Venture Funding Industry Real Estate 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

After all, most financial intermediaries themselves rely on a dizzying, complex, and costly array of intermediaries to run their own operations. This industry supports a number of intermediaries, such as investment bankers, exchange operators, auditors, lawyers, and crowd-funding platforms (such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo).

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8