Thinkers50 Podcast: Michael Jacobides

In this Thinkers50 Brightline Initiative Podcast, Stuart Crainer interviews Michael Jacobides, professor at London Business School and holder of the Sir Donald Gordon Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The two discuss ecosystems: how firms change their sectors and how sectors evolve, and what that means for industry architecture.

Success is as much about helping other firms to innovate as it is about being innovative yourself. Companies need to change the questions they are asking. There is a shift from a product that is defined in terms of its individual goods and services to something that can cross the boundaries and create new firms and new types of competition.

How can you revisit what the customer wants, refresh what you think their needs are and then how can you intersect with that to build something that covers people’s needs by either finding a place in someone else’s ecosystem, or by creating a new ecosystem? How can you enhance your advantage by doing things the customer wants?