单项选择题

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 tong-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 cross4unctional 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 innovations are a wonderful thing, Expert innovation management is even better and much rarer.

What problem is indicated in the second paragraph（）

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