Innovating Around an Existing Core Product or Service

What do LEGO, GoPro, and CarMax have in common?

Wharton professor David Robertson says they all have a similar strategy for growth that involves building families of complementary innovations around a core product or service. It’s an approach to innovation that’s neither disruptive nor incremental, but rather somewhere in the middle. And Robertson argues it’s a strategy that any company, no matter the industry, should consider.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to use customer feedback to identify a product or service that can anchor a family of complementary innovations as well as how to prepare for common challenges.

Robertson is the author of The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation.

Key episode topics include: strategy, innovation, growth strategy.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: Low-Risk, High-Reward Innovation (2017)
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