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Economics Innovation Learning

Breaking with Experience

Innovation involves breaking with the past to create something even more remarkable

Innovation Experience

(Source: Flickr)

THE traditional Experience Curve focuses on increasing production experience which leads to predictable cost reductions.

This kind of experience is relevant in industries that are relatively stable, competitive, and production-intensive.

Experience Curve Example

(Source: Wikipedia)

But what about high tech and creative industries where the lifecycle of a new product is only a couple of years? And what about pretty much every industry nowadays from music distribution to taxi services, which are open to disruption from fast moving well-funded digital entrepreneurs?

In many industries production experience is becoming less important than innovation experience, the track record of being able to consistently break with the past to create something even more remarkable.

To highlight the distinction between “production experience” and “innovation experience” you only need to look at Apple.

Under the leadership of Steve Jobs the company created a string of amazing products which opened up entirely new product categories: the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. Apple’s strength does not rest on its production experience and, in fact, the company outsources much of its production to Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturing company.

What about you and your business?

Are you learning how to break with the past, or focusing on creating more of the same but cheaper?

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