This book presents a series of high performance product design (PD) and development best practices that can create or improve product development organization. In contrast to other books that focus only on Toyota or other individual companies applying lean IPD, this book explains the lean philosophy more broadly and includes discussions of systems engineering, design for X (DFX), agile development, integrated product development, and project management. The "Lean Journey" proposed here takes a value-centric approach, where the lean principles are applied to PD to allow the tools and methods selected to emerge from observation of the individual characteristics of each enterprise. This means that understanding lean product development (LPD) is not about knowing which tools are available but knowing how to apply the philosophy. The book comes with an accompanying manual with problems and solutions available on Springer Extras.

This book closely examines the concept and theory of 'future' from a multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on the practice of forecasting, especially in its interaction with complexity. It highlights the relations between forecasting, decision-making and strategy, mixing technical arguments (but minimal mathematics) with ideas from psychology and philosophy. Rich with examples, the book highlights the role of values and attitudes in deciding how to look at the future. Written in a casual but precise style that makes the ideas easily digestible, it helps corporate strategists, practicing futurists, and researchers in the field of strategy or public planning gain a fundamental perspective on the future - before starting to predict things.

This book was partly born of frustration - personal frustration with how complicated the simple act of trying to watch TV can be, and the professional frustration of being around almost twenty years of television-, advertising-, and technology-industry floundering with how to better reach TV audiences.The internet, we argue, is finally ready to change all that. Not in the way most people think and experts talk about incessantly - Jetsons-like visions of TV everywhere anytime. While it can do that, the internet can also do something much more powerful for viewers, programmers, and advertisers alike: allow viewers to discover and organize what they really want to watch.Solving that problem is worth billions. Not only because it will extend the lifecycle of so-called linear TV, but it can extend and improve television's economic returns while simultaneously seizing the strategic high ground for the transition to the day when television and the internet become one.That's what this book is about- why it's a problem worth solving, how to go about solving it, and how today's television industry will benefit from stepping in where cable companies, phone companies, and their technology suppliers are failing miserably.Aimed primarily at Hollywood, this book is for studio, network, and channel executives, producers, show runners, ad agency strategists ("digital" or otherwise), media buyers, and executives at ratings/measurement companies. We describe how Hollywood can both extend the life of so-called linear television and control the transition to internet-delivered TV, while building upon existing "starter" digital assets such as Hulu, or channel- and program-specific web properties and applications.Finally, this book is also a wake-up call to internet content and technology companies to take a fresh look at an old problem, using a comparatively new, low-cost set of approaches produced by the "Web 2.0" and cloud computing waves which emerged over the last several years.

This book presents a rich compilation of real-world cases on digitalization, the goal being to share first-hand insights from respected organizations and to make digitalization more tangible. As virtually every economic and societal sector is now being challenged by emerging technologies, the digital economy is a highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous place - and one that holds substantial challenges and opportunities for established organizations. Against this backdrop, this book reports on best practices and lessons learned from organizations that have succeeded in overcoming the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the digital economy. It illustrates how twenty-one organizations have leveraged their capabilities to create disruptive innovations, to develop digital business models, and to digitally transform themselves. These cases stem from various industries (e.g. automotive, insurance, consulting, and public services) and countries, reflecting the many facets of digitalization. As all case descriptions follow a uniform schema, they are easily accessible, and provide insightful examples for practitioners as well as interesting cases for researchers, teachers and students. Digitalization is reshaping business on a global scale, and it is evident that organizations must transform to thrive in the digital economy. Digitalization Cases provides first-hand insights into the efforts of renowned companies. The presented actions, results, and lessons learned are a great inspiration for managers, students, and academics. Anna Kopp, Head of IT Germany, Microsoft Understanding digitalization in all its facets requires knowledge about its opportunities and challenges in different contexts. Providing 21 cases from different companies all around the world, Digitalization Cases makes an important contribution toward the comprehensibility of digitalization - from a practical and a scientific point of view. Dorothy Leidner, Ferguson Professor of Information Systems, Baylor University This book is a great source of inspiration and insight on how to drive digitalization. It shows easy to understand good practice examples which illustrate opportunities, and at the same time helps to learn what needs to be done to realize them. I consider this book a must-read for every practitioner who cares about digitalization. Martin Petry, Chief Information Officer and Head of Business Excellence, Hilti

"In an environment of intensifying global competition, deployment of technology is becoming the strategic battlefield of the international marketplace." —National Critical Technologies Panel.

Creating Technology Strategies prepares business and scientific leaders in the biomedical industries to battle for dominance in the global marketplace. It closes the gap between R&D scientists' and corporate executives' understanding of the relationship between R&D decisions and the achievement of business objectives. In doing so, the book creates a blueprint to guide the day-to-day and long-term allocation of science and technology resources and helps achieve a consistency among corporate, R&D, program, and project decisions.

Alice M. Sapienza, a scholar and strategic consultant to biomedical firms, explains the special issues of concern to these firms and some of the pressures on their leadership to invest in and manage R&D resources wisely. She provides a conceptual foundation for understanding the technology life cycle and supplies tools with which the leadership team can.

• Analyze the external environment and take advantage of the competitive situation
• Codify the firm's competitive position in terms of the technology it possesses
• Develop a strategic vision that encourages consistent R&D investments
• Determine the consequences of and requirements for changing the firm's competitive position
• Assess the fit of external knowledge sources (new recruits, acquired firms, etc.) with the biomedical firm
• Implement competitive technology strategy at program and project levels.

Supplemented with strategic investment assessment guidelines for both industry insiders and nonindustry venture capitalists, Creating Technology Strategies covers both macro and micro R&D issues. For R&D scientists, managers, and potential investors in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and diagnostic industries, this book provides much of the information needed to understand the complex and crucial issues of biomedical R&D strategy.

How to compete successfully in an industry unlike any other . . .

A direct relationship to public and personal health; a three-part consumer base consisting of medical professionals, third-party payers, and patients; a high level of government regulation; and the intensely emotional nature of many of the decisions that must be made—this combination of factors sets the biomedical industry apart from all others when it comes to determining R&D strategies. In this book, a leading industry consultant, Dr. Alice Sapienza, speaks directly to biomedical scientists, corporate strategists, and R&D managers. Dr. Sapienza sorts through the many complex issues that affect both business and R&D decisions and arrives at sensible conclusions that enable biomedical firms to maximize the effectiveness of R&D programs while strengthening their competitive position. The approaches developed in Creating Technology Strategies will be of particular interest to

• Members of the R&D leadership team, who must understand, design, and implement a technology strategy that supports the achievement of business goals.
• Corporate management, who must better understand the role of science and technology in the attainment of strategic objectives.
• R&D scientists, who must assess and manage programs and projects in ways that are consistent with corporate and technology strategies.
• Investors, who must analyze a biomedical firm's competitive position before committing their resources.

"Dr. Sapienza provides an extremely useful framework for R&D based companies to use in attempting to realign their business strategies. . . . [She] touches on many of the critical elements of the competitive technology environment. . . . [The book provides] a highly effective vehicle to allow groups of key decision makers . . . to understand the future of the research-based biomedical research industry for the 21st century." —Michael Williams, Ph.D., D.Sc., Vice President, Neuroscience Research, Abbott Laboratories

"[It] is well worth reading and thinking about. . . . includes several hypothetical cases . . . bringing to life some of the more difficult conceptual material. Dr. Sapienza brings an intimate knowledge . . . of technology and strategic issues facing the leadership of many knowledge-based organizations today." —Muzammil Mansuri, Ph.D., Vice President, MITOTIX.

"I am impressed . . . it presents a sophisticated, but realistic, approach to the problems facing the biopharmaceutical industry in defining and implementing a relevant business and research strategy. . . . Dr. Sapienza has caught the flavor excellently." —J.D. Fitzgerald, M.D., Materia Medica.

This book is dedicated to the analysis of the entrepreneurship in successful companies by presenting and comparing a series of case studies in the Asia-Pacific where many new companies have been growing successfully in the 21th century. In total, 5 cases in the manufacturing industry, 4 cases in the services industry, and 3 cases related to new business and social innovation are chosen from The mainland of China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Each case provides insight into the entrepreneur's aspiration, the processes of personal and business developments, the factors of success, and the inspirations drawn from the analysis. These cases are analyzed and compared from the viewpoints of entrepreneur's motivation, ability of foreseeing changes and opportunities in the future business environment, core resources and innovation, knowledge management and culture for the company, determination and ethos. These are critical factors in value creation for customers and the society, especially in the future business environment. Finally, commonalities and uniquenesses in entrepreneurship relevant to industry sectors and social-economic-cultural contexts are clarified and a typical entrepreneurship model in the Asia-Pacific is proposed.

This book addresses the rapidly changing Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing communication landscape, in particular the shrinking of marketing budgets and the increasing demand for measurable results. Despite the rapid drop of print media usage, the authors suggest the need for increased accountability for the use of advertising media and highlight ways to boost effectiveness. The book provides a robust analysis of the current B2B environment along with a research-informed illustration of the future. Aiming to fill a gap in existing literature and offer new research findings, this study offers a comprehensive guide to assist practitioners in decision-making and a stimulating analysis of the B2B marketing communications landscape which will be of great interest to academics of marketing and communications.

Crowdfunding is emerging as a new source of financing for creativity and innovation. It promotes the launching and scaling of new projects for different types of creators by providing networked platforms and handy digital tools. This book provides insight into crowdfunding and how crowdfunding contributes to our communities and society. The book includes an overview of existing discussions across different disciplines, i.e. entrepreneurship, information systems, marketing, and correlates the literature to the best crowdfunding practices. The book begins with origins, basic notions, and antecedents of crowdfunding. In the main parts, it demonstrates the five distinguished facets of crowdfunding: Creativity, diversity, balance, connection, and change. It also addresses the drawbacks of crowdfunding and subsequent outcomes of crowdfunding success. Finally, it provides a perspective on the future of crowdfunding.

This book examines the behavior of high-tech startups and important aspects of innovation ecosystems in Brazil. It discusses how the local business environment boosts startups and high-tech entrepreneurship, leading to the most successful implementation of technology parks and incubation movements in Latin America. In the first part, the chapters explore the experience of Brazilian high-tech startups with regard to innovation, funding, background of the entrepreneur and their efforts entering international markets. The second part is dedicated to innovation ecosystems and explains the role of business incubators, acceleration programs, and university entrepreneurship in the country.

This book sets out to explain blockchain for the non-technical expert, to decipher the dense technicalities that dominate the field and to present the opportunities for busy professionals using practical applications and case studies. Presented in a clear and structured way and with documented real-world cases, the book is a practical reference guide that can be used across different industries. It offers both a constructive and critical review of the pain points blockchain is facing today, illustrates the pitfalls as well as the opportunities for business and describes the steps towards overcoming them. It also aims to provide a unique view of both the intersection and synergy of blockchain with other emerging technologies and the wider digital ecosystem, as we see increasingly that blockchain alone won't be able to deliver business solutions. Most important, the book identifies trends and a path for the future of blockchain and its impact on society as a whole. The book is written for business audiences across all sectors. It is not a technical guide to blockchain, but it enables businesspeople to be better informed and prepared to plan ahead and develop strategies using blockchain.

This book is the first of two volumes presenting a business model to add value through Procurement. Including several case studies of successful implementation, it demonstrates how the increasing complexity of the business environment requires a significant intervention on the management of processes and information within individual organizations and through inter-company relations. Agile Procurement presents the application of the Agile method which optimises and digitizes processes in order to reduce wastage and defects. As a method, tool and a culture aimed at effectiveness, efficiency and economy of organisations, agile procurement requires a change of paradigm. This volume examines these areas of improvement and presents best practice in improving processes. Each chapter of the book presents and substantiates the costs and benefits of process improvement through agile procurement. This is is seen as the integration of Lean Six Sigma and digitization.

• The first book to cover the strategic implementation of personalized learning in workforce education and higher education settings. • A critical contribution to actionable literature on effective lifelong learning, training, and education programs. • Provides a design framework to address many of the challenges facing existing training programs.

Product design significantly influences product cost and quality, as well as market share and profitability of a firm. Design projects often involve many people belonging to different functional areas and in many organizations several design projects may be under way at the same time. Due to this complexity, management of design has given rise to a rich set of research problems in management and engineering. In this volume, design is considered as the planning and specification activity prior to fabrication. Design determines what products will be produced, how they will be produced, and when they will be introduced into the market. The quality of the products and the speed with which they are developed are significantly affected by the design process. The design process by which a product is developed is determined by the managerial and engineering practices, tools and techniques. This book presents engineering and management perspectives on design. Topics covered include: Decomposition of product development projects; Tools and techniques for preliminary evaluation of designs; Interface between design and manufacturing, assembly and distribution; Design information flows, and Determination of the scope, timing and duration of projects, and the allocation of resources.

Everyone talks innovation and we can all point to random examples of innovation inside of healthcare information technology, but few repeatable processes exist that make innovation more routine than happenstance. How do you create and sustain a culture of innovation? What are the best practices you can refine and embed as part of your organization’s DNA? What are the potential outcomes for robust healthcare transformation when we get this innovation mystery solved? Through timely essays from leading experts, the first edition showcased the widely adopted healthcare innovation model from HIMSS and how providers could leverage to increase their velocity of digital transformation. Regardless of its promise, innovation has been slow in healthcare. The second edition takes the critical lessons learned from the first edition, expands and refreshes the content as a result of changes in the industry and the world. For example, the pandemic really shifted things. Now providers are more ready and interested to innovate. In the past year alone, significant disruptors (such as access to digital health) have entered the provider space threatening the existence of many hospitals and practices. This has served as a giant wake-up call that healthcare has shifted. And finally, there is more emphasis today than before on the concept of patient and clinician experience. Perhaps hastened by the pandemic, the race is on for innovations that will help address clinician burnout while better engaging patients and families. Loaded with numerous case studies and stories of successful innovation projects, this book helps the reader understand how to leverage innovation to help fulfill the promise of healthcare information technology in enabling superior business and clinical outcomes.

Everyone talks innovation and we can all point to random examples of innovation inside of healthcare information technology, but few repeatable processes exist that make innovation more routine than happenstance. How do you create and sustain a culture of innovation? What are the best practices you can refine and embed as part of your organization’s DNA? What are the potential outcomes for robust healthcare transformation when we get this innovation mystery solved? Through timely essays from leading experts, the first edition showcased the widely adopted healthcare innovation model from HIMSS and how providers could leverage to increase their velocity of digital transformation. Regardless of its promise, innovation has been slow in healthcare. The second edition takes the critical lessons learned from the first edition, expands and refreshes the content as a result of changes in the industry and the world. For example, the pandemic really shifted things. Now providers are more ready and interested to innovate. In the past year alone, significant disruptors (such as access to digital health) have entered the provider space threatening the existence of many hospitals and practices. This has served as a giant wake-up call that healthcare has shifted. And finally, there is more emphasis today than before on the concept of patient and clinician experience. Perhaps hastened by the pandemic, the race is on for innovations that will help address clinician burnout while better engaging patients and families. Loaded with numerous case studies and stories of successful innovation projects, this book helps the reader understand how to leverage innovation to help fulfill the promise of healthcare information technology in enabling superior business and clinical outcomes.

This book is a timely guide for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) researchers, policy makers and strategists. SMEs are the most important sources of job creation and local development especially in knowledge-based economies. As turbulence in the globalized economies expands SMEs will have to learn to sustain competitiveness by developing their 'dynamic capabilities'. Based on the findings of a 4-year European and Latin American research project, this book provides a theoretical framework, practical instruments and cases on how SMEs in diverse economic, social and cultural contexts can develop crisis resilience, increase agility, innovate and thus successfully compete in turbulent times.

Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are becoming more and more relevant both for their innovative content and as innovation boosters for manufacturing firms and, with this scenario in mind, this book first offers an in-depth analysis of what innovation in KIBS is and its performance outcomes, and then synthesizes what we know about KIBS firms' innovation models, as well as their specific peculiarities and limitations. This book examines the recent trends in innovation, service design and development in KIBS, starting from a review of the extant literature, explaining the role and specific traits of innovation in KIBS. Then, it progresses our knowledge about KIBS and about how new technologies are offering unique opportunities to use and share their knowledge, within and across boundaries. The book also includes several cases that show how, at the micro level, firms can effectively design their services and boost their innovation performance, by overcoming some of the traditional limits of innovation in services. While KIBS literature traditionally emphasizes that innovative and performing KIBS firms rely on tight client-provider interactions with service customization, recent research suggests that alternative modes of innovation are viable for performing KIBS firms: KIBS firms can develop mass customization strategies, ease interactions with clients via ICT interfaces and leverage on focused collaborations with expert clients. Particularly, the digitalization and ICT technologies are fostering platform and modular architectural designs of KIBS, as in the software and web design services. The book seeks a broader understanding of innovation in KIBS in the digital era and will be an essential guide for both academics and practitioners interested in KIBS innovation and design.

This book focuses on China's economic transformation at firm and institution levels. It shares insights into the growth of innovative Chinese firms in the automobile and telecom equipment sectors, both of which promoted social dialogue of policy-making and ultimately contributed to a policy paradigm shift in China's 'indigenous innovation'. The book illustrates, through case studies on firms like Geely, the Chery, the BYD, Huawei, the ZTE and the DTT, how these firms behave differently from other local actors and what social conditions had contributed to their success. The book will help those who are interested to learn more about the rise of innovative Chinese firms to better understand the dynamics of China's industrial progress.

This book sheds light on what has come to be known as corporate foresight and its influence on innovation management. Throughout the book, the contributors examine the practice of corporate foresight and how it may lead to the identification of opportunities for innovation. They also explore the complex processes and conditions that may enable (or impede) the potential of contemporary organizations to capture value from their corporate foresight exercises. Representing an interesting mix of competing ideas and perspectives, the book offers deep insights into the interactive effects of corporate foresight and its contribution to innovation management. This book was originally published as a special issue of Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.

Already in just a decade of existence, cryptocurrencies have been the world's best-performing financial asset, outperforming stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies. This comprehensive yet concise book will enable the reader to learn about the nuts and bolts of cryptocurrencies, including their history, technology, regulations and economics. Additionally, this book teaches sound investment strategies that already work along with the spectrum of risks and returns. This book provides a plain-language primer for beginners worldwide on how to confidently navigate the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrencies. Beginning by cutting to the chase, the author lists the common burning questions about cryptocurrency and provides succinct answers. Next, he gives an overview of cryptocurrency's underlying technology: blockchain. He then explores the history of cryptocurrency and why it's attracted so much attention. With that foundation, readers will be ready to understand how to invest in cryptocurrency: how cryptocurrency differs from traditional investments such as stocks, how to decide which cryptocurrency to invest in, how to acquire it, how to send and receive it, along with investment strategies. Additionally, legal issues, social implications, cybersecurity risks and the vocabulary of cryptocurrency are also covered, including Bitcoin and the many alternative cryptocurrencies. Written by a journalist-turned-professor, this book's appeal lies in its succinct, informative and easy-to-understand style. It will be of great interest to anyone looking to further their understanding of what cryptocurrency is, why it's a big deal, how to acquire it, how to send and receive it, and investment strategies.

This book offers a new understanding of innovation in the built environment. The ways meaning of innovation is constructed has important implications for policymakers, project managers, academics and students. Through a longitudinal research study into innovation in firms and projects, the book addresses some key themes, challenges and concerns that practitioners face when managing innovation in the built environment. It examines the key drivers for innovation in the construction, engineering and infrastructure firms and projects. In particular, the questions of how and why innovation becomes recognised and sustained over time are explored. Different theoretical perspectives are considered to explain different aspects of innovation. This includes sensemaking, organisational and individual identity, storytelling and narration. The book has practical implications for how organisational activities become labelled as 'innovation' and for what purpose. It shares some lived stories of innovation as mobilised by practising managers. The connectivity between the formal narratives of innovation at the policy level and the lived narratives of innovation articulated by practitioners is explored. Combining the theory with practice, this book presents an insightful view on the implications of innovation in the business world today.

Project management disciplines have been a part of IT for many years. Why then, are so many challenges still directly associated with how a project is managed? Many projects fail for a myriad of reasons; most, however, stem from poor or inadequate project evaluation and performance appraisal, while, improved project planning and direction is considered to be one of the key factors to IT project success. Eriona Shtembari arranges evaluation methods and techniques into three groups, managerial-financial-and-development. This book explores the process of project evaluation and the purposes of evaluation, given its strong relationship to the success of the project. It examines IT project evaluation; identifies methods and techniques to be used throughout the project life cycle; examines the benefits of project evaluation and proposes a systematic approach/framework of project evaluation to serve as a tool for successful project management. Shtembari analyses the most up-to-date research relating to the process and methods/techniques of project evaluation, throughout the project life cycle. From the systematic literature review, she identifies the most usable methods and techniques in project evaluation and focuses on the adequacy of these methods and techniques in the service sector. The theoretical underpinning of the book, serves as a base to interpret the interviews in the case study and build a theory as to how the project evaluation context relates to the proposed scientific theory. The findings in this book provide solutions for practitioners to help them boost the evaluation framework and consequently improve their IT project management.

This book is at the cutting edge of the ongoing 'neo-Schumpeterian' research program that investigates how economic growth and its fluctuation can be understood as the outcome of a historical process of economic evolution. Much of modern evolutionary economics has relied upon biological analogy, especially about natural selection. Although this is valid and useful, evolutionary economists have, increasingly, begun to build their analytical representations of economic evolution on understandings derived from complex systems science. In this book, the fact that economic systems are, necessarily, complex adaptive systems is explored, both theoretically and empirically, in a range of contexts. Throughout, there is a primary focus upon the interconnected processes of innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the ultimate sources of all economic growth. Twenty two chapters are provided by renowned experts in the related fields of evolutionary economics and the economics of innovation.

Organizations today are being challenged to make sense of changes in environments that, now more than ever, are described as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). They are also being driven to understand how the future will evolve and what impact it will have not only on the organizations themselves, but also on industries and societies. In recent decades a field has emerged to support organizations in addressing these challenges: strategic foresight. This book is a comprehensive introduction to strategic foresight. It presents a history of the field and explains the main principles in thinking about the future. The book describes how organizations can apply strategic foresight, and explains how it relates to other fields such as strategy, innovation and leadership, highlighting the relevance of strategic foresight not only for organizations but also for individuals, particularly managers and leaders. Grounded in the theoretical foundations of strategic foresight, the book reflects the latest academic research and explores practical applications in different contexts. It draws on more than two decades of experience that the author has in the field as a researcher, a consultant and in the corporate context. This is essential reading for managers and leaders of public and private organizations who want to establish strategic foresight practices, as well as students of foresight and managers in the fields of innovation, research & development and marketing.

It's Our Research: Getting Stakeholder Buy-in for User Experience Research Projects discusses frameworks, strategies, and techniques for working with stakeholders of user experience (UX) research in a way that ensures their buy-in. This book consists of six chapters arranged according to the different stages of research projects. Topics discussed include the different roles of business, engineering, and user-experience stakeholders; identification of research opportunities by developing empathy with stakeholders; and planning UX research with stakeholders. The book also offers ways of teaming up with stakeholders; strategies to improve the communication of research results to stakeholders; and the nine signs that indicate that research is making an impact on stakeholders, teams, and organizations. This book is meant for UX people engaged in usability and UX research. Written from the perspective of an in-house UX researcher, it is also relevant for self-employed practitioners and consultants who work in agencies. It is especially directed at UX teams that face no-time-no-money-for-research situations.