Why invest in France? This is a question I addressed with Emmanuel Delaveau, General Partner at Partech, a leading VC. I/ Invest in strong demand France is a country of choice for innovation and investment because of strong demand. In France, incumbent corporates have long minimized the impact of the Internet on traditional industries. Too many established corporates once believed that Facebook was only a…
About two years ago, I had an extensive discussion with François Darchis, Senior Vice-President of Air Liquide, on how to build competitive advantage. He indicated that the company had pursued multiple strategies to develop a sustainable competitive advantage. Implemented strategies included: cost reduction operational excellence Geographic expansion in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) François Darchis also told me that he was adding a…
Acquiring new clients means meeting with C-level executives, directly. This requires innovation. Find out why.
A recent study done by Harvard Business School showed that between 70 and 90% of innovation products fail to find clients. Therefore, innovation products are retired from the market only 12 months after they were first launched. Given that developing an innovation product usually requires a multimillion investment, it’s easy to understand why General Manager prefer to focus on core products in core markets…
The GE Global innovation barometer reports that business leaders, growing uneasy with the continuing changing dynamics of today’s business landscape and uncertain about the path forward, are looking at innovation to secure growth. Recently, I was talking to William Taranto, President of Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund. Among the many topics we discussed, we wondered what would be the ideal innovation organization: what roles…
Last week I gave a conference at a company’s Open Innovation Fair. There were General Managers, Country Heads, CTOs and Business Unit Heads from multiple Fortune 500 EU companies that were attending the fair. Before I started out, the CTO of a prominent German company was asked what was the most significant challenge to innovation. He replied instantly: “building an innovation-friendly culture”.