Business Innovation Quotes & Sayings

Every great brand goes back to a courageous individual who dared to say 'NO' to the status quo. — David Brier

History is filled with inferior brands outselling superior ones thanks to better branding. Only superior branding has the power to overcome and reverse this (and superior products and services deserve superior branding). — David Brier

I do think one success of Northern Europe, which the United States came from, was its willingness to accept innovation in business practices like Adam Smith and the whole Enlightenment. It essentially made the merchant class free instead of controlled by the king and aristocracy. That was essential. — James D. Watson

Cookie cutters are for baking, not branding. — David Brier

Innovation takes practice more than talent. — Debra Kaye

Entrepreneurship is when an individual retrieves a red hot idea from the creativity furnace without the constraint of the heat of lean resources, and with each persistent blow of the innovation hammer shapes the still malleable idea against the anvil of passion, vision, insight, strategy, and principles to forge a fitting vessel of a creative concern. — Amah Lambert

I believe that he will prosper most whose mode of acting best adapts itself to the character of the times; and conversely that he will be unprosperous, with whose mode of acting the times do not accord. — Niccolo Machiavelli

It's through diverse opinions and perspectives that a dynamic organisation can drive innovation and create its competitive advantage. — Craig Dent

The best way to get a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. — Linus Pauling

New product and new types of service are generated, not by asking the consumer, but by knowledge, imagination, innovation, risk, trial and error on the part of the producer, backed by enough capital to develop the product or service and to stay in business during the learn months of introduction. — W. Edwards Deming

An enemy of innovation could be your own sales force. — Akio Morita

Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business. — Christopher Lasch

Look at every 'revolutionary' brand or category killer, it had an app, or a feature, or a functionality, or a user experience nobody else at that point could offer. I refer to this as 'the Killer App' principle. — David Brier

At the end of the day, if you have a great product and service paired with the wrong pricing strategy / business model, you don't have a business. — Richie Norton

Business only has two functions - innovation and marketing. — Milan Kundera

If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us. — Stuart Rose

I made it real clear to the business community - if your plan for innovation is to trick people, is to fool them, is not to tell them the truth about the price, then you're right: I'm going to be right in the way. — Elizabeth Warren

Everything and everyone represents at least one brand. Therefore, to brand or not to brand is not even a question. — Laura Busche

The road to recovery is to stimulate small business and innovation by reducing taxation, regulation, and litigation. — Sandy Adams

In today's saturated marketplace, you'll go nowhere selling a "bunch of features." We are in the business of disrupting the market with brands that matter. — Laura Busche

You have to free your brain to roam to places that are a little impractical, and innovation consultants have come up with some great ways to encourage that. One of my favorites comes from Legrand, who tells people in group brainstorming sessions to try to come up with the WORST possible ideas that they can think of ... Once you have a list of really, really bad suggestions - and coming up with them does force your brain to work in a different way - you try to flip them over into the positive. — Amanda Lang

Are you setting business goals? Try this:

Step 1: Add a "0" to your revenue goal.
Step 2: Take away a "0" from your expense goal.
Step 3: Let your mind go to work.

Thank me later. — Richie Norton

The greatest challenge to most innovation centers around the world is many nations' punitive attitudes towards failure. In most of the world, if your first business fails, no one will work with you again. But, trial and error is the genesis of innovation. — Jay Samit

Innovation happens at the intersection of people, process, technology, customers, and business ecosystem. — Pearl Zhu

Business model innovation is constant in this economy. You start with a vision of a platform. For a while, you think there's a line of sight, and then it's gone. There's suddenly a new angle. — Beth Comstock

There are three points I used to help a gourmet chocolatier increase sales 300% in a single month as well as a Midwest city to increase tourism guests 500% in 12 months. — David Brier

Brand and product don't compete. Brand is product, and everything else conforming to the unique story that consumers create when they think of you. — Laura Busche

I believe in solving social ills with business skills. — Richie Norton

Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two and only two functions: Marketing and Innovation. Marketing and Innovation produce results. All the rest are costs. — Peter Drucker

One of his motivating passions was to build a lasting company. At age twelve, when he got a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, he learned that a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual. " I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company," he recalled." The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. When i got the chance to come back to Apple, I realized that I would be useless without the company, and that's why I decided to stay and rebuild it. — Walter Isaacson

It is critical to learn how to listen for what is not being said. — Debra Kaye

By questioning all the aspects of our business, we continuously inject improvement and innovation into our culture. — Michael Dell

So, you don't have money to invest in your brand? You do have money for damage control, right?

Here's the thing: anyone can make your brand inferior in your absence. — Laura Busche

People change, and so do their aspirations, and so should brands. — Laura Busche

Organizational maturity is not just about technical excellence or process efficiency, but also about business effectiveness, agility, innovation intelligence, and people-centricity. — Pearl Zhu

**New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight.**
That's right - the essential insight doesn't come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight
a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision.
[first-line bold by author]
[2002] p.23 — Gary Hamel

Truth be told, nobody thought Dell's direct business model would work, at least back in the early 90s. As Bill Sharpe, head of the advertising agency that held the Dell Canada account from 1996 to 2006, told me, "I had a business partner in California who said, we have a client, Dell. It sells computers over the phone, and ships them to you. I said, 'There's no way, who's gonna buy a computer over the phone? They're complicated. — Heather Simmons

Every organisation, not just business, needs 1 core competence: Tactical execution — Tony Dovale

Innovation implies high risk, and with high risk comes failure, so you've got to be prepared for that, but if you don't risk, then your business goes stale very quickly. — Michael Grade

Brand growth and dominance is created by having the highest brand value, not the lowest price tag. — David Brier

The strategic stimulus to economic development in Schumpeter's analysis is innovation, defined as the commercial or industrial application of something new
a new product, process or method of production, a new market or source of supply, a new form of commercial, business or financial organization. — Joseph A. Schumpeter

We need to move from comparative advantage to perpetual advantage ... — Max McKeown

Nobody thought the direct business model would work. But work it did, and spectacularly. Until it didn't. And therein lies the tale. — Heather Simmons

Why is it there's no aisle in a grocery or department in a store or menu on a website for "average stuff" or "beige products"? FACT: People never got passionate about mediocre and average. While consumers and clients can find "best deals" and "natural foods" and "artisan goods," one doesn't find an aisle or a website menu tab offering "average stuff" without excelling in something (which might explain that while vanilla is necessary for the ice cream sundae, it's the hot fudge we all crave and talk about). — David Brier

Our country is a place where hope can be born and great companies, organizations and non-profits can spring up from an idea birthed on the back of a coffee-shop napkin. — Todd Stocker

The business's potential depends on how it unleashes its information potential and talent potential. — Pearl Zhu

My passion for innovation and my interest in the 'business of science' has seen Biocon commercialize many innovative platforms and products. — Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Innovation without insight is failure. — Mark Simmonds

Some people are natural inventors who prefer to work without the pressure and expectations of the later business phases. Others are ambitious and see innovation as a path toward senior management. Still others are particularly skilled at the management of running an established business, outsourcing, and bolstering efficiencies and wringing out cost reductions. People should be allowed to find the kinds of jobs that suit them best. — Eric Ries

The only companies that innovate are those who believe that innovation is vital for their future. — John Harvey-Jones

It becomes a question of 'How do we convey our differentiation instantaneously?' and drive a wedge between any apparent (or assumed) sameness in the marketplace. — David Brier

Your money habits and investment strategy is not all about what you do, but much about who you are. Become the person it takes to do, succeed, and innovate. — Amah Lambert

When it comes to branding and the ever-changing social media phenomenon, you're not a mushroom. In other words, you shouldn't be kept in the dark and fed a pile of...well, you get the idea. — David Brier

From want of foresight men make changes which relishing well at first do not betray their hidden venom, as I have already observed respecting hectic fever. Nevertheless, the ruler is not truly wise who cannot discern evils before they develop themselves, and this is a faculty given to few. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Evidently, one thing seems to have more value in direct proportion to whether or not we feel we have the freedoms, joys or conveniences of that thing. — David Brier

The biggest mistake brands make are trying to "sell their stuff" rather than clarifying what people are actually buying. — David Brier

Local brands evoke national pride, are seen as less profit-oriented, and are often formed on deep local insights. But quality worries persist, innovation is questioned, the information can be woefully inadequate, they are sometimes seen to be opaque and their advertising is clearly recognised as not being of a global standard. For local brands, quality, innovation and transparency are critical hills to climb. — Miles Young

What is the "Once upon a time" of your brand story? Ask yourself this: "How does what I'm building help consumers close the gap between who they are today and who they want to be tomorrow? — Laura Busche

Brands are either built on reruns or coming attractions. The future has no road map while the past does. Creating a brand that blazes new trails can sometimes be bumpy but will also allow you to be the first to discover something new, something meaningful and something that makes others ask, "Why didn't we think of that?" Be very scared of "old tricks" and build a spirit of innovation. It's the "old tricks" that have the highest risk, not doing something bold. — David Brier

It was the combination of EC2 and S3 - storage and compute, two primitives linked together - that transformed both AWS and the technology world. Startups no longer needed to spend their venture capital on buying servers and hiring specialized engineers to run them. Infrastructure costs were variable instead of fixed, and they could grow in direct proportion to revenues. It freed companies to experiment, to change their business models with a minimum of pain, and to keep up with the rapidly growing audiences of erupting social networks like Facebook and Twitter. — Brad Stone

Recognizing our responsibilities as industrialists, we will devote ourselves to the progress and development of society and the well-being of people through our business activities, thereby enhancing the quality of life throughout the world. — Konosuke Matsushita

If you are not good at innovating, be smart in investing. — Rifhi Siddiq

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions. — Anthony Jay

Entrepreneurs don't ask for permission. They act per a mission. — Ryan Lilly

IT has to provide both business and technological insight into how they bring success to the company as a whole transparently, holistically, and continually. — Pearl Zhu

I am passionate about finding undiscovered and talented artists. I want to help those artists get to the next level and provide existing artists with a new way to reach fans. I wanted to partner with the Cutting Edge Group because they share my vision and have a proven track record in innovation in the music business. — Michelle Phan

There's no "get rich quick." There's no "overnight success."

However, this doesn't mean that when you decide to start a business that you're just starting. You could start making new money tomorrow.

I was fishing with my son and taught him that you can't catch a fish unless your line is in the water. A truth my dad once taught me.
You may have spent years learning a skill or creating a product or service that you just simply haven't thought to monetize. Like leaving a fishing pole on the ground along side the river, but not having your line in the water yet.

All you need to create a new stream of income is to make something consumable and offer it at a price that someone will pay.

If you're not making offers, you're not making money.

Get your line in the water! — Richie Norton

A great sports car that goes from 0-60 in 3.9 seconds is just a fact. To the wrong audience, it's irrelevant. But to the right audience, it's a passion. — David Brier

One can always sell something by offering the lowest price. But this does not create loyalty to your brand. Never did and never will. It only creates "loyalty" to that price point. As soon as your guest or visitor is offered a better price, he or she will jump ship, leaving you like a scorned lover in the middle of the night. — David Brier

Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait - put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features. — Derek Sivers

For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they're already entrenched. Microsoft is struggling to adapt to that new reality. — Paul Allen

Crowdsourcing can greatly increase the number of ideas entering the front-end of the innovation funnel, however, using the wrong source can result in a large number of inappropriate ideas, and the lack of defined process for managing the progress of ideas through the funnel can result in the funnel becoming blocked. — D. James Kennedy

It is common understanding that communication is at the heart of any organisation. So, why have organisational models not evolved accordingly? To truly leverage the potential of this information age, we need to rethink and redesign organisations — Miguel Reynolds Brandao

I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation ... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows. — Sam Altman

In the private sector, there is always innovation. There's always change. There's always improving productivity, and if you're not leading that, you'll be passed and ultimately go out of business. So there's an urgency to constantly update and renew and to rethink your enterprise. — Mitt Romney

Innovation requires having at least three things: a great idea, the engineering talent to execute it, and the business savvy (plus deal-making moxie) to turn it into a successful product. — Walter Isaacson

Technological change is never an isolated phenomenon. This revolution takes place inside a complex ecosystem which comprises business, governmental and societal dimensions. To make a country fit for the new type of innovation-driven competition, the whole ecosystem has to be considered. — Klaus Schwab

Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell. — Elon Musk

Book publishers needed only to listen to Jeff Bezos himself to have their fears stoked. Amazon's founder repeatedly suggested he had little reverence for the old "gatekeepers" of the media, whose business models were forged during the analogue age and whose function it was to review content and then subjectively decide what the public got to consume. This was to be a new age of creative surplus, where it was easy for anyone to create something, find an audience, and allow the market to determine the proper economic reward. "Even well meaning gatekeepers slow innovation," Bezos wrote in his 2011 letter to shareholders. "When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there's no expert gatekeeper ready to say 'that will never work!' And guess what - many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity. — Brad Stone

Research conquers doubt. It aligns everyone around the incontestable. Research is the key to clarity - in startups, enterprises, and life itself. — Laura Busche

Thought Leadership
"The new economics for industry, government, education" Book by W. Edwards Deming
"In God we trust. All others must bring data."
William Edwards Deming,
Statistician, Professor and Author
#smitanairjain #leadership #womenintech #thoughtleaders #tedxspeaker #technology #tech #success #strategy #startuplife #startupbusiness #startup #mentor #leaders #itmanagement #itleaders #innovation #informationtechnology #influencers #Influencer #hightech #fintechinfluencer #fintech #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurs #economy #economics #development #businessintelligence #business — W. Edwards Deming

A disruptive innovation is a technologically simple innovation in the form of a product, service, or business model that takes root in a tier of the market that is unattractive to the established leaders in an industry. — Clayton Christensen

Products shouldn't just work well, they must unfold well. — Laura Busche

In business the 80/20 principle is behind any innovation, any extra value. It is an entrepreneurial principle, a formula for value creation utilized not only by entrepreneurs, but by most managers and organizations. — Richard Koch

If you have time to write a business plan, you have time to prove the model. Just sayin. — Richie Norton

Jerry Hirshberg, in his book The Creative Priority: Putting Innovation to Work in Your Business, writes, No one in a corporation deliberately sets out to stifle creative thought. Yet, a traditional bureaucratic structure, with its need for predictability, linear logic, conformance to accepted norms, and the dictates of the most recent "long-range" vision statement, is a nearly perfect idea-killing machine. People in groups regress toward the security of the familiar and the well-regulated. Even creative people do it. It's easier. It avoids the ambiguity, the fear of unpredictability, the threat of the unfamiliar, and the messiness of intuition and human emotion. — John C. Maxwell

There are only two things in a business that make money - innovation and marketing, everything else is cost. — Peter Drucker

Make sure you test your brand story's recipe with whomever you're cooking it for. — Laura Busche

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation. — Peter F. Drucker

Ultimately, innovation depends on the people with advanced skills who have the ideas, and on the business risk-takers willing to back them. — Anthony Pratt

Look for patterns, and then ask why those patterns exist. — Debra Kaye

I faced people from all walks of business who fully disregarded design (though they were completely influenced by it). I also met fine artists who drowned in their own work and the dense creative universe in their minds.

Then I met designers. And instantly fell in love. Let me tell you why.

Designers are familiar with critiques. They not only tolerate them but actively look out for them. They honestly believe in iterations and learn to edit down their work. They embrace simplicity and create beauty based on requirements other than their own. Design education teaches you to run away from assumptions and to have the stomach to scrap your work often.

I'm bringing this up because it's time to bridge the gap between design and business. — Laura Busche

The Internet is ultimately about innovation and integration, but you don't get the innovation unless you integrate Web technology into the processes by which you run your business. — Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

Innovation and creativity are the juiciest parts of running a business. — Barbara Corcoran

I came to the conclusion long ago that limits to innovation have less to do with technology or creativity than organizational agility. Inspired individuals can only do so much. — Ray Stata

Innovation, I believe, is the only way that America will regain the initiative in a global dynamic economy. — John Sculley

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great art science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. — Walter Isaacson

I think 3D is a great innovation for the film business. But I hope it's not the thing that kills the golden egg because what's happening now is every movie there's pressure from the studio to turn it into a 3D movie. — Neal H. Moritz

When the corporation's investment capital becomes impatient for growth, good money becomes bad money because it triggers a subsequent cascade of inevitable incorrect decisions. Innovators who seek funding for the disruptive innovations that could ultimately fuel the company's growth with a high probability of success now find that their trial balloons get shot down because they can't get big enough fast enough. Managers of most disruptive businesses can't credibly project that the business will become very big very fast, because new-market disruptions need to compete against nonconsumption and must follow an emergent strategy process. Compelling them to project big numbers forces them to declare a strategy that confidently crams the innovation into a large, existing, and obvious market whose size can be statistically substantiated. This means competing against consumption. — Clayton M Christensen

We tend to think that innovation comes from bureaucratic funding, through planning, or by putting people through a Harvard Business School class by one Highly Decorated Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (who never innovated anything) or hiring a consultant (who never innovated anything). This is a fallacy - note for now the disproportionate contribution of uneducated technicians and entrepreneurs to various technological leaps, from the Industrial Revolution to the emergence of Silicon Valley, and you will see what I mean. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb