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October 22, 2019

Big companies need an “ambidextrous” approach to innovation

Top-down innovation led by senior management or bottom-up experimentation by staff? The best companies manage both, although they can be hard to reconcile.


Big companies can be likened to large container ships: heavy, cumbersome and, while they can move fast in a straight line, incredibly difficult to shift course. They have big overheads, many locations and hundreds of systems to align their thousands of employees. It is unsurprising, therefore, that these companies struggle to change quickly, if at all, in response to the latest trends in their sector.

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