Recessionary Innovation

Bruce Nussbaum in BusinessWeek identifies some of the key mistakes companies make.

Number 10 on Bruce's list is "Retreat into Walled Castles", to quote Bruce: "cutting back on outside consultancies is seen as a quick way to save money. Yet one of the key ways of introducing change into a business culture is to bring in outside innovation and design consultants. They know what companies across a broad range of industries around the world are doing to promote change. Not receiving this information can hurt a company's global competitive position."

Recession provides time and opportunity for product development. When the economy is in full-swing there is absolutely no time for new development. As Bruce explains:

"Winners always emerge out of recessions and they almost always beat their competition on the basis of something new. Apple worked on iTunes, iPod and its retail stores during the last recession and came out swinging once growth returned to destroy its competition".

Identify ten best strategies...

Innovation is the last competitive edge left, unless you want to compete only on price. Is it time we had some innovation in economics? Paul Krugman in the NY Times has a great article "How did Economists Get it So Wrong?"