Maintaining Continuity while Reinventing

2014

One of the mainfestations of the rapid acceleration and change we are facing these days is that business ideas and concepts become invalid more frequently than ever before.

Strategic innovation is precisely focused on this issue and could also be termed “Business Concept Innovation”.

As one deconstructs the existing business concept and reinvents it to correspond to current and future reality, using new design principles, the question often arises as to – what of the previous business design must one carry forward into the future.

In the quest for agility in the face of contextual change, when all dimensions of business are subject to change, what an enterprise attempts to do, is to maintain the integrity of its identity. This identity is refelcted in its values, mission and embedded in its culture. It is this identity that I believe is the strongest link in the continuity between the past and the future.

Polaroid Images (Fubiz.net)

No other enterprise perhaps indicates the wrenching change it has faced recently than Polaroid. This article in Fast Company, describes how the company managed to pull itself out of a destiny of certain oblivion.

The article clearly illustrates the point I make above. Polaroid ensured that as it found new avenues to redeploy its assets and capabilities in a new context, it also made sure, that its identity, its ‘Brand’, was not compromised.

Great lesson and case here.