ss press,including the ones that appear
in these pages.Executives are continually
enjoined to innovate and,by innovating,to grow their
companies.It’s not just the business press exerting pres-
sure; the markets,too,insist that companies grow both
the top and the bottom line,quarter after quarter,year
in, year out. This market impatience reflects a funda-
mental economic reality: Companies can’t succeed by
standing still. So business executives keep themselves
extremely busy–creating new products,explovance, because Michelin hasn’t yet persuaded more
than a few car manufacturers to adopt the product.
Adner’s article describes a method for assessing project
risks when, like Michelin, you are dependent on other
companies (not end users) for two things: complemen-
tary technologies, and partners who must adopt and
incorporate your technology into theirs.Numerous case
stories in this article make one thing perfectly clear–
inventing a cool new technology is often easier than
