"The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate"

These 12 ideas on ways for businesses to innovate are a must read for business development managers.

"The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate" from MIT Sloan by Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott and Inigo Arroniz.

"...many companies have a mistakenly narrow view of it. They might see innovation as synonymous with new product development or traditional research and development. But such myopia can lead to the systematic erosion of competitive advantage. As a result, companies in a given industry can come to resemble one another over time. In actuality, business innovation is far broader in scope than product or technological innovation. In fact, a company can innovate along any of 12 different dimensions with respect to its:

1. offerings,
2. platform,
3. solutions,
4. customers,
5. customer experience,
6. value capture,
7. processes,
8. organization,
9. supply chain,
10. presence,
11. networking, and
12. brand.

Sounds like good advice, pick one! Here are some ideas, focused on using web 2.0 technologies, social networking applications and community software solutions to implement them.