Page 15 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

Four Types cif
Innovation

INN V TE OE EVAPORATE

Profit, thy name is creativity.

— Business Week

When giant PC chipmaker Intel was confronted with new
and unusually tough competitors that used clones of its chips
to compete on price, CEO Andrew Grove turned to innova-
tion. Intel launched an accelerated schedule for new-product
development that produced the 386, 486, and Pentium chips
and left competitors in the dust.'

When Johnson & Johnson, the health care and consumer
products conglomerate, found itself at a cost disadvantage
compared to competitors, it launched a program to develop
innovative processes that would cut overhead costs. For
example, CEO Ralph Larsen created customer support cen-
ters, employee teams working on customer sites to facilitate
distribution and ordering. The teams eliminated overlap-
ping services in most of the firm's 166 businesses. 2

When Nordstrom, the Seattle-based department store chain, 101
analyzed its markets, it realized that providing high levels CREATIVE
of customer service would be an innovative marketing ap- PROBLEM
proach in the discount-oriented retail industry. That strat- SOLVING
egy worked extremely well, giving Nordstrom an edge in a TECHNIQUES
rapidly changing marketplace.'