**New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight.** That's right - the essential insight doesn't come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight -- a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision. [first-line bold by author] [2002] p.23
Interpretation
Successful business ideas often arise from a combination of luck and vision.
This quote by Gary Hamel emphasizes that new business concepts are not merely the result of structured planning but emerge from a blend of serendipity, personal drive, and visionary foresight. It suggests that while chance plays a vital role in innovation, there must also be clarity in understanding where potential opportunities lie.
In practice
During a business seminar focused on entrepreneurship, this quote could inspire attendees to embrace uncertainty as they develop their ideas.
The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors.
The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.
To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
It doesn't matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is - what matters is its relative 'share of customer value' in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value.
The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.
Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life.
If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.
When we started the e-commerce, nobody believed that China would have e-commerce because people believed in 'guang-shi,' face-to-face, and all kinds of network in traditional ways. There's no trust system in China.
Hierarchy is an organization with its face toward the CEO and its ass toward the customer.
Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
If you own the problem, you own the customer. If you lose the problem, you lose the customer. It's that simple.
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