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Design of Business Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage

By Roger L Martin

Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game-changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative-they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.

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Book Information

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Publish Date: 10/13/2009
Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781422177808
ISBN-10: 1422177807
Language: Eng

What We're Saying

December 15, 2009

The 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking Books, 624 pages, $32. 95 Even though Too Big to Fail was written during the same year the financial collapse occurred, Andrew Ross Sorkin has written what we predict will be the definitive book on the subject. Sorkin not only tells a gripping “perfect storm” story—reporting the gory details as our 401k’s disappeared and our financial system became nationalized—but he humanizes the players as well, resulting in an imminently readable, albeit lengthy, book. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 02, 2011

Healthy Competition

By Porchlight

Business books can deal with some very serious advice regarding competitive advantage, but sometimes it's fun to take the lighter side of things. We sell business books, and Stone Creek Coffee sells coffee. We never cross paths in the marketplace, but ping pong? READ FULL DESCRIPTION

May 17, 2011

Fixing the Game

Book Review by Porchlight

With the NFL owners and players union currently in court over the lockout, it might seem like an odd time to use the NFL as an example for how to run anything. But current labor disputes aside, the NFL is by far the most successful business operating in sport today—it must be doing something right. And Roger L. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

November 14, 2014

There’s a difference between designing products with your customer in mind and designing products born from thoughtfully developed empathy with your customer. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

October 29, 2015

Roger L. Martin & Sally R. Osberg define and document the growing field of social entrepreneurship. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

Full Description

Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game--changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative--they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.

Why? In The Design of Business, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.

To innovate and win, companies need design thinking. This form of thinking is rooted in how knowledge advances from one stage to another--from mystery (something we can't explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies.

Martin shows how leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cirque du Soleil, RIM, and others use design thinking to push knowledge through the stages in ways that produce breakthrough innovations and competitive advantage.

Filled with deep insights and fresh perspectives, The Design of Business reveals the true foundation of successful, profitable innovation.

About the Author

Roger Martin is an author, business school professor, and strategy adviser to CEOs. He is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, where he served as Dean from 1998 to 2013. He is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and other leading publications and has published nine books, including Playing to Win, The Opposable Mind, and Creating Great Choices.<

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