In this instructional segment, Dr. Walter V. Murray emphasizes that sustainable competitive advantage stems from out‑innovating rivals and being first to market, as exemplified by Elon Musk’s Tesla. He warns that innovation can backfire when leaders develop products in isolation, innovating "for" customers rather than "with" them. Using Google Glass as a cautionary case, Murray illustrates how a lack of customer co‑creation leads to market rejection despite substantial resources. The core message is that businesses must engage customers throughout the innovation process to avoid costly failures and maintain market leadership.
Chapters
You know, that's, that's always boggles my mind. There are people who make terrible decisions, bad decisions, but expect to get good results. Can't get good by making bad decisions. It is a true statement in business that the organization, the business owner that could out-innovate the competition generally is the one that leads the pack. Elon Musk and Tesla. There are literally dozens of other electric vehicle companies, but Elon Musk is still leading the pack at Tesla because he was able to out-innovate and be first to market. But innovation, if not done right, could actually be the death of your company. For example, when organizations and business leaders innovate, creating a new product, a new service, they make one cardinal mistake. The cardinal mistake is that business owners and business leaders invariably innovate for the customer rather than innovating with the customer. It's a big difference. It might sound like a nuanced difference, but if your organization is hell-bent on innovating for the customer rather than innovating with the customer, you're going to probably end up like Google. Now you say Google, right? Google is a successful company. Yeah, they are one of the largest companies in the world. I think their balance sheet, last time I checked, had almost $10 billion in cash. How many of you have ever heard of Google Glass? Google Glass? No? Well, you see, Google had this brilliant idea to innovate something extraordinarily innovative for the customer. Google Glass was a type of wearable technology, right? I mean, it's real high-tech. So imagine your smartphone on the inside of your glasses. Some engineer thought that was a brilliant idea for the customer. Never really did enough research with the customer to find out if this brilliant, creative, innovative idea was actually going to work. But needless to say, the fact that none of you here are wearing a Google Glass, or half of you have never even heard of it, tells you that it did not succeed. It was innovating for the customer rather than with the customer.
