Open Innovation

Bottom-Up Meets Top-Down:

Inventing at the Edge, Scaling at the Core

Akamai Edge13 Customer Conference

October 9, 2013

Bottom UpInventing at the Edge

2

The Technology

3

Cool

The Problem

4

Interesting

The Cause

5

Inspiring

The Market

6

Big

The Entrepreneurs

7

Bold

An ExampleAkamai

• Cool Technology

• Network algorithms

• Interesting Problem

• QoS on the Worldwide Web

• Inspiring Cause

• Transform the experience

• Big Market

• Everything digital

• Bold Entrepreneurs

• Danny and Tom

8

Top DownScaling at the Core

9

Scaling InnovationThe Return on Innovation Model

Differentiation Neutralization

Productivity

10

Competitor 2*

Competitor 1*

Competitor 3*

YOU

*

Competitive Set

Leverage your unmatchable

capability

to create an unmatchable

offer

DifferentiationInnovating to Create a Unique Position of Power

11

Differentiation

Play for separation

Competitor 2*

Competitor 1*

Competitor 3*

Competitive SetYOU

Neutralize a competitor’s

differentiation

by reaching “good enough”

fast enough

**

NeutralizationInnovating to Meet Market Norms

12

Neutralization

Play for speed

PriceDeflation

Competitor 2*

Competitor 1*

Competitor 3*

Competitive Set

YOU

Optimize behind the scenes

to free up scarce resources

OptimizationInnovating to Drive Greater Efficiencies

*

Optimization

Play for money

14

Three Innovation Playbooks

Separation Time to market Cost

Unmatchable Good enough Best in class

These playbooks have conflicting goalsDo not combine them

How far? How fast? How much?

Core Metric

Standard to Meet

Test Question

Differentiation Neutralization Optimization

FailedAttempts

Waste

• Differentiation projects that don’t go far enough

• Neutralization projects that go too far and/or are too slow

• Optimization projects that don’t confront sacred cows

• Blended projects that never reach a tipping point

Sources of Waste:

No ReturnHow Would-Be Innovators Waste Their R&D

Differentiation Neutralization

Optimization

Recap

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• Bottom-Up Innovation

• Cool technology

• Interesting problem

• Inspiring cause

• Big market

• Bold entrepreneurs

• Top-Down Innovation

• Differentiation

• Neutralization

• Optimization

• Keep them separate

• Avoid waste

gmoore@geoffreyamoore.com

twitter.com/geoffreyamoore

http://linkd.in/YnBwig

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