单选题 Not long ago innovation was The Big Idea in marketing circles. Now, however, it's hard to see the benefits of this rush to innovate. Indeed if anything, companies seem to be drawing back from innovation, not charging ahead. But just a few years ago many companies were combining a commitment to create entirely new product categories through innovative technologies working to hugely ambitious growth targets with a root-and-branch organisational overhaul designed to free up creativity and speed new product roll-outs.
The result was that as resources were shifted away from core businesses, sales and profits faltered, share prices slumped and CEOs were ousted. Now the mantra is a more conservative focus on the top brands, the top retail customers and the top markets. It's being rewarded in many cases by healthier share prices. This sustained effort to cut long tails of smaller brands and focus marketing resource on existing leaders seems to be paying off.
So were we wrong to pinpoint innovation as key to long-term market success? Surely not. But we might have underestimated the enormous complexity of this beast. The term "innovation" may be simple enough but it spans a vast landscape, including the type and degree of innovation, marketing purpose, management process and market circumstance, not all of which are well understood.
Take "type" of innovation. Are we talking about new products only? Or new processes, new channels, underlying technologies, organisational structures and business models? When should the innovation involve a new brand? Or take "degree". Are we aiming for blue-sky inventions that will transform markets and create new categories? Or marginal tweaks in, say, formulation or packaging that give us an excuse to advertise something "New! Improved!"? Likewise, is the marketing purpose of the project to steal a march on competitors and drive incremental growth, or to update an obsolete product line and play catch-up to competitors? As one business news editorial complained, "innovation" is often just "simple proliferation of similar products". Then there's process. What is the best way to manage this particular innovation? Is it to employ creative revolutionaries and set them free, or is disciplined risk management, requiring the careful testing and sifting of options to pick winners a better approach? In larger organisations, has senior management really made time spent in cross-functional teams a recognised element of successful career paths? What time frames (eg. payback periods) and degrees of risk is senior management comfortable with? And does the organisation have a culture that fits the chosen approach? Does it "celebrate failure", for example, or is it actually a risk-averse blame culture (despite what the CEO says in the annual report) ?
Successful innovation requires clearing two hurdles. First, it needs the right project with the right degree of innovation to fit with the right marketing purpose, the right innovation process, corporate culture and market circumstance. Second, it needs senior managers that understand the interplay between these different factors, so that rather than coming together simply by chance, they are deliberately brought together in different ways to meet different circumstances.
Clearing Hurdle Two can happen "by accident". Clearing Hurdle One requires real skill. We can all point to admirable, inspiring innovations. But how many companies can we point to and say "these people have mastered the art of innovation"? Brilliant innovation is a wonderful thing. Expert innovation management is even better and much rarer.

单选题 According to the first paragraph, a few years ago companies ______.

单选题 What problem is indicated in the second paragraph?

单选题 According to the third paragraph, it would be a mistake to ______.

单选题 According to the fourth paragraph, companies should ensure that ______.

单选题 What is suggested in the fifth paragraph?

单选题 Doubt is expressed in the final paragraph as to whether ______.