Over the holiday break I caught up on some very long overdue reading.Β Quite a bit of it in fact.
One issue of FastCompany magazine had a fascinating article about GE and how the company uncovers new opportunities. It appears to be very much in the vein of the work that we do at Innovaro:
Immelt and other top GE strategists love to talk about the opportunities presented by “white spaces” and “adjacencies” — corporate-speak for untapped markets that the company wants to develop, and for expansion opportunities that one GE business unit can pass along to another.
Given the article was written in the middle of 2008, in the current economic climate it would be very revealing to see if this type of strategic foresight is still going ahead at GE, or if it has been cut back.
Roger, thanks for the post. You are right. It is very interesting (and revealing) to see how companies innovate in a challenging environment .
I’m a leader in GE’s “Imagination Breakthrough” program. Imagination Breakthroughs are a “protected class” of ideas driven by our businesses and led by GE’s Chairman, Jeff Immelt. Tomorrow, I’ll be participating in meetings with senior GE leaders to drive 2 Imagination Breakthroughs forward. One will provide better, more affordable health technologies to enable doctors to diagnose and treat people living in remote areas of our world. The other innovation targets better neurological health (such as Alzheimer’s). In just the last two months, we’ve moved forward our battery technology (http://www.gereports.com/ge-ups-the-ante-with-30-million-battery-investment/) and Smart Grid (http://www.gereports.com/teaming-up-with-google-on-smart-grid-and-renewables/) – both new and exciting innovations in our ecomagination portfolio.
In my role, I have a “front row seat” to how our leaders and businesses continue to drive innovation during this tough economic situation. We are very focused on innovation: both on innovation we can bring to market today and innovation for tomorrow. Thanks, Trajan