The evolution of the commercial and legal frameworks within which we live has left us with the notion of the firm as a legal entity, responsible for its debts, its own destiny, and to its owners for a return on the capital risked to fund activities.
In all those capacities, a firm is like a person, but unlike a person, who has an existence as a result of its parents, a firm does not live in the abstract without a value proposition to customers.
Firms grow and prosper only while their products are in some way superior to those of their competitors, and when the products become stale, so do their prospects of success.
This simple fact of life should drive the innovation efforts in all businesses. As the guru Peter Drucker once said, “the only competitive advantage that is sustainable is the ability to out-innovate competitors”
