Innovation 2010: new perspectives. The case of dragon latecomers.

The traditional frameworks that companies follow in developing their innovation are mainly product innovation or process innovation. A product innovation involves the "introduction of a good or service that is new or substantially improved". This includes, but is not limited to, improvements in functional characteristics, technical abilities, or ease of use.

This kind of innovation can be pursued by various strategies, but an empirical study has shown that there are a number of critical success factors that always play a vital role:
- Up-front homework: studies show that solid up-front homework drives up new product success rates significantly and is strongly correlated with financial performance
- Being close to customers: successful businesses, and teams that drive winning new product projects, have a slave-like dedication to the voice of the customer
- Seek differentiated, superior products: has shown five times success rate
- Early product definition: before the customers create their own idea
- Plan and resource the market launch
- Organize around true cross-functional projects teams: good organizational design is always strongly linked to success
- Build an international orientation into your new product process

Many companies, in time, have developed successful strategies around these and other factors, commercializing cycles of new products and profiting from that. The Nineties have shown a new trend, that goes more in the direction of process innovation, which is defined as "the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method".

This includes significant changes in techniques, equipment and/or software and it can be intended to decrease unit costs of production or delivery, to increase quality, or to produce or deliver new or significantly improved products.

This kind of innovation has especially led to organizational changes and improvements that allowed companies to gain sustainable competitive advantages and great profits.

In the new Century, yet, some factors are challenging consolidated companies strategies and innovation models: the greater frequency of disruption and disclocation in many industries are shortening business models lifecycles, new global competitors are emerging, systemic risk is growing, social and ecologiacal constraints on corporate action are emerging.

All these factors require companies to rethink their challenged innovation model and accelerate it. A model that emerged successfully out of this scenario has been called BMI, Business Model Innovation.