The Wide Lens Quotes

“A great idea that excites your organization but not your customer creates no value. A great idea that you cannot implement is a theoretical dream. And a great idea that you implement, but which the competition implements better, is at best a disadvantaged effort and at worst a waste of both time and resources.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation

“Three Better Place Lessons 1. In ecosystems, we must monitor the burn rate of partner patience just as carefully as the burn rate of investment capital. 2. A strategy of ecosystem reconfiguration must incorporate within it a strategy for setting ecosystem boundaries. Establishing a Minimum Viable Ecosystem (chapter 8) is a critical element of any such plan. 3. In a world of ecosystems, great execution is no longer sufficient for success, but it remains a necessary condition.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

“The success of electric cars depends not just on the components—cars, batteries, charge spots—but in how they are put together to solve the problems of range, resale value, and grid capacity. A narrow focus on commercializing the individual pieces without accounting for how they fit together in the bigger picture is a recipe for failure. Unfortunately for Better Place, poor execution on a brilliant model is a potent recipe for failure as well.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

“The markets in Israel and Denmark would have allowed Better Place to reach a sustainable commercial scale within a manageable geographic scope. But as excitement around the company grew and scores of government delegations from around the world came to explore what Better Place might do in their own countries and regions, management attention shifted. Yielding to the temptation of fast, global growth, Better Place launched pilots and spent resources across the world from Australia to the Netherlands, Hawaii to Japan, China to California to Canada.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

“But too much of the time was lost to the distraction of global expansion—wasteful efforts to establish toeholds and run pilots in new geographies before Better Place’s two core markets had been secured.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

“Less touted, but more important, than the physical separation of the battery from the car was Better Place’s innovation of the economic separation of battery ownership and car ownership. EV advocates are quick to note that technology improvements in batteries will one day eliminate the range problem. What they often miss, however, is that these very same improvement will destroy the resale value of used electric cars with older batteries. Since resale value ranks high among concerns for mass-market buyers, this has all the makings of a deal breaker.”
― Ron Adner, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss