The Innovation Crisis: Unprecedented Uncertainty
Intuit was experiencing what happens to most successful start-ups as they grow into large, established corporations: execution becomes the highest priority as they scale the business to meet the demands of existing customers. Over time, the focus on execution crowds out innovation. Intuit was losing the ability to perform what Peter Drucker called management’s fundamental task: “to create a customer.”3 Ironically, as companies focus on capturing value from customers, they often lose the ability to create customers.
And something more had changed. It’s a cliché to say that the world is more uncertain than ever before, but few people realize the extent of the increase in uncertainty over the past thirty years. More important, they don’t understand that greater uncertainty has created the need to change the way most organizations are managed. The challenge of creating a customer is more complex and uncertain than ever before. Here’s why.