Innovations are everywhere – and they matter. They matter because they change our lives, for better or worse, and because they are the source of long-term growth.  But is innovation always the best policy? Is ‘now’ necessarily the best time to innovate? And how exactly should we go about it?

This book seeks to provide the answers to some of these questions.  It is not a detailed manual for innovation, since experience suggests that there is no such thing as a simple set of successful innovation recipes, which work at all times and in all places.

For this reason, the book – written for practising managers and students of company-level innovation – uses a case-based methodology from which readers can learn practical lessons.  At the same time it provides examples of creative approaches followed by less publicly well-known, high-impact SME innovators, or by leading well-established firms applying less known, high-impact innovation strategies.

It shows how innovators as diverse as Bongo, GreenPan, Studio 100, Cronos, Belgacom Mobile, Arteconomy, QOD, Sigasi, VIB, Janssen Pharmaceutica, and Alcatel-Lucent – companies which range from big to small, high-tech to low-tech, new to old, product-based to service-based, well known to less well known – have succeeded in completing their innovation journey. The cases discuss topics as varied as creativity, growth, product leadership, business model change, as well as finance and commercialisation.

There are many possible roads to innovation. Successful innovation means defining your own road. The purpose of this book is to help you plan your journey along your own particular route.

This book contains 11 chapters. Each chapter is self-contained and covers a particular topic, while an integrative framework is presented throughout so as to help formulate innovation strategies that drive growth:

Foreword: Rudy Provoost, Chief Executive Officer, Philips Lighting

Chapter 1 · Arteconomy: stimulating creativity and innovation through art (Herman Van den Broeck and Eva Cools)

Chapter 2 · A technology intelligence system to enable open innovation at VIB (Mark Veugelers, Stijn Viaene and Jo Bury)

Chapter 3 · A showcase in show business: Studio 100 outperforms the competition through product leadership Addressing every aspect of children’s entertainment (Kurt Verweire and Judith Escalier Revollo)

Chapter 4 · Belgacom Mobile: IT-enabled process innovation in turbulent industries (Joachim Van Den Bergh and Stijn Viaene)

Chapter 5 · Breaking into an established market through a process of experimentation: the case of GreenPan (Miguel Meuleman, Jan Lepoutre, Olivier Tilleull and Wouter De Maeseneire)

Chapter 6 · How to survive your own business model innovation: the story of Bongo (Marion Debruyne)

Chapter 7 · The sagacity of Sigasi: financing an innovative start-up with limited resources (Sophie Manigart and Andy Heughebaert)

Chapter 8 · Winning the disruptive technology game: the case of Alcatel Access Network Division (A.N.D.) (Steve Muylle and Pieter Geeraerts)

Chapter 9 · The benefits of open innovation in low-tech SMEs: the Quilts of Denmark story. The fight against commoditization (Wim Vanhaverbeke)

Chapter 10 · Growth by necessity and design: the balancing act of new business platforms at Cronos (Iris Vanaelst)

Chapter 11 · Going Beyond the Pill: Business Transformation through Corporate Venturing at Janssen Pharmaceutica (Walter Van Dyck and Tom Aelbrecht)

Epilogue · BIC’s innovation journey. An interview with Billy Salha, General Manager Europe, BIC