Riding the Innovation Wave ─ Learning to Create Value from Ideas

Innovationmatters – being able to create value from ideas is crucial to survival andgrowth. But while any organization might get lucky once being able torepeat the trick requires learning and developing particular ways of workingwhich enable the process. Over a hundred years of research and practicalexperience now provides a knowledge base from which we can draw to help developsuch approaches.

But howdo we move from prescription to implementation? And how does theinnovation challenge play out over the lifetime of an organization? Howdoes it renew its capability to innovate and do so against a background ofdramatically changing markets, technologies and social trends?

Thisbook draws on a detailed history of a large German company (HELLA ), now activein over 35 countries, employing 34,000 people. It didn't start outthat way, it began as an entrepreneurial start-up in the late 19^thcentury in the (then) uncertain early days of the car industry. It movedfrom selling whips and other buggy accessories for horse-drawn carriages tohorns and lamps for the new-fangled motor cars beginning to appear on the roadsof north-western Germany. The journey since then has been one ofinnovation – in products and processes, in entering new markets, in addingservices to its products, and in changing its underlying business models. Survival for over a hundred years is not an accident – it has been built onlearning how to innovate and on constantly challenging and updating thosemodels.

Originally a chemical engineer, John Bessant has beenactive in the field of research and consultancy in technology and innovationmanagement for over 35 years. He currentlyholds the Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Exeterand has visiting appointments at the universities of Erlangen-Nuremburg andQueensland University of Technology. In2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management and in 2016 aFellow of the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM). He hasacted as advisor to various national governments, international bodies(including the United Nations,World Bank and OECD) and to many public andprivate sector organizations. He is theauthor of 30 books and many articles on the topic and has lectured andconsulted widely around the world.