Silver Lining: Your Guide to Innovating in a Downturn

Scott D. Anthony

Jun 2009 · Harvard Business Press

About this ebook

Experts agree: The turbulence triggered by the economic shock of 2008 constitutes the "new normal." Unfortunately, too many managers have become paralyzed by it, capable only of slashing costs indiscriminately.

Though examining spending during recessions makes sense, the smartest executives do much more. As Scott Anthony reveals in The Silver Lining, these leaders continue innovating--by stopping ineffective initiatives, changing key business processes, and starting more productive behaviors. Result? Their companies emerge from downturns stronger than ever.

Providing a wealth of ideas, tools, and examples from diverse industries, Anthony explains how to safeguard your company's profitability during even the toughest recessions. You'll discover how to:

-Prune your innovation and business portfolio to liberate resources for more promising initiatives

- Adopt a radical new market-segmentation scheme that helps you re-feature your offerings to reduce costs while delivering new value to customers

- Reinvent your innovation process to drive fresh growth

- Mitigate innovation risks by conducting strategic experiments and forging alliances with customers and other external entities

- Appeal to increasingly value-conscious customers to fend off low-cost attackers

In today's brutal economic climate, executives must pare costs to the bone while planting and nurturing seeds for tomorrow's growth. The Silver Lining explains how to master this seemingly impossible challenge.

About the author

Scott D. Anthony is president of Innosight, an innovation consultancy, and lead author of The Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work. At Innosight, he has worked with clients ranging from national governments to leading consumer-products, media, health-care, telecommunications, and software companies.