Obsession with innovation is a current business fad. Many companies rely too heavily on innovation to solve their problems, and they attempt to start over with something fresh to revive old and tired businesses. Innovation sounds great. But it is often the lazy approach to marketing, and it typically doesn't work.
So what’s the solution? Sergio Zyman preaches the power of renovation to accelerate and sustain top-line growth. It starts with recapturing the essence of your existing brands, products and core competencies and doing more of the things that made your business great in the first place. It includes redefining your competitive space and creating preference for your business. In the end, it provides the most compelling customer experience.

Renovate Before You Innovate will challenge conventional business wisdom, facilitate smarter business decisions, and help companies "sell more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently™."

Obsession With Innovation
While innovation and risk taking can be critically important elements of some companies’ strategy, for most companies, it simply isn’t the right way to drive organic growth. What should you do instead? In a word, renovate. This means no longer doing different things with existing assets and competencies, but doing better things with them instead. It means re-engaging with your customers by using your relationship with them to provide the products and services they truly want. Renovation is starting with what you can sell and then seeing whether you can deliver it. There is, however, a big difference between what companies should do and what they actually end up doing.

Your core competencies are not simply a list of your products or services. They are based on four distinct factors: knowledge (what you know and what you’ve learned), experience (what you’ve been through), resources (what you have), and people (what you do and how you do it). These competencies are the things you’re good at; the things you know how to do better than anyone else.

Core essence is somewhat more abstract. It’s who you really are as a company or brand. It’s the relationship customers and noncustomers alike have with your brand; it’s what your brand stands for in their hearts and minds and the promises your brand makes to consumers. Your core essence is critical in determining where you can go as a business - if you try to extend your brand beyond your core essence, customers will not cooperate.

Champions at Leveraging Core Essence
If you succeed in leveraging your core competencies, core essence, and assets and infrastructure (the three elements of the value equation), you’ll be able to grow your business successfully. Consider Starbucks Coffee, whose core competencies are building stores, motivating people, and sourcing the best coffee in the world. Its core essence is providing a great coffee experience. Likewise, grilling food is the core competency of Outback Steakhouses; its essence is Australia; and its new chain of seafood restaurants, Fishbone (which is modeled on Outback), is a great success.

Businesses that pursue an innovation strategy generally identify new growth opportunities that enable them to leverage their core competencies and assets. They embrace a philosophy of "Let’s start with what we can build and see if we can sell it." Companies that rely on renovation, conversely, start with their core essence and identify new growth opportunities that are consistent with what consumers have shown they’re willing to buy. The philosophy of renovation is "Let’s find out what we can sell and see whether we can make it." Copyright © 2005 Soundview Executive Book Summaries