Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation

James P. Andrew · Harold L. Sirkin · John Butman

Jan. 2007 · Harvard Business Press

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If you're like most people, you bet your career and company on innovation--because you must. Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation offers you a new way to think about and manage innovation that will dramatically improve the odds of success.

Authors James Andrew and Harold Sirkin, senior partners in The Boston Consulting Group, describe an approach to managing innovation based on the concept of a cash curve--which tracks investment against time. They ask the questions you need to ask: How much should you invest in a new product or service? How fast should you push it to market? How quickly can you get to optimal value? How much additional investment should you pour into sustaining and building the product or service?

Payback offers you practical and economically sound advice on when to pursue cash flow indirectly by first pursuing other benefits, such as brand and knowledge. It also shows you how to reshape the cash curve by using different business models--integrator, orchestrator, and licenser--each of which balances risk and reward differently.

The authors then present a short list of decisions and activities that you must make--not delegate--to achieve a high return on innovation. You won't find facile answers in Payback--but you will find valuable insights and practical guidance for mastering one of the most challenging and critical business activities: innovation.

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James P. Andrew is a senior vice president and director of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), leads BCG’s innovation practice, and helps companies worldwide to improve the return on their investments in innovation. Harold L. Sirkin is senior vice president and director at BCG and leader of the firm’s Global Operations practice. He consults with companies in many business sectors about their innovation activities.