Tucker is President of The Innovation Resource, a consulting firm based in Santa Barbara, CA. He advises client companies such as Sun Microsystems and Citibank on innovation strategy. His previously published books include Winning the Innovation Game, Managing the Future: 10 Driving Forces of Change, and Customer Service for the New Millennium.
In his Introduction, Tucker explains that the premise of his book “is that seemingly disparate issues [such as strategy innovation, new product development, and how to solve problems more creatively] must be integrated into a single overarching strategy if they are to be mobilized in the quest for growth. That is why this book summarizes and condenses the key issues of innovation; it is written to enable you and your team to actively move through each chapter and develop a blueprint to redesign your firm’s innovation process holistically.” Tucker recommends five principles which assert that innovation is a discipline which must be approached comprehensively; innovation initiatives must include an organized, systematic, and continual search for new opportunities; also, that they must involve everyone in the organization; and finally, all such initiatives must be customer-centered.
Tucker cites statistics from a Corporate Board Strategy of 3,700 US-based and non-US-based companies, each of which generates at least $500-million in revenuer annually. Of these, only 3.3% showed consistent profitable top- and bottom-line growth and shareholder returns for the seven-year time period analyzed. Only 21 of the 3,700 companies, or less than 1%, had sustained their growth over the last 20 years. According to Tucker, each demonstrates what he characterizes as a “Growth Gap” which cannot be closed by transitional means such as increasing marketing and sales, cost-cutting, efficiency-enhancing initiatives, and mergers and acquisitions. Throughout the narrative of his book, Tucker explains why and how innovation is the key driver of growth and profitability. Of even greater value are his recommendations for formulating and then implementing initiatives within three dimensions of innovation: product, process, and strategy. In the final chapter, Tucker poses a series of questions which each reader must answer before “mapping out an innovation initiative.” The material which precedes this situation analysis (think of it as a reality gut-check) will guide and inform both the responses to the questions, and more importantly, how to take appropriate and effective action in response to the answers they evoke.
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