INNOVATE--OR ELSE: A RALEIGH-BASED THINK TANK GUIDES BUSINESSES TO TAKE THE OFFENSIVE.

• Author: Barkin, Dan
• Position: OPINION

In a study room in Hunt Library on N.C. State's Centennial Campus, Paul Mugge sketches curves on a whiteboard that describe what he calls the three horizons. More than a quarter century ago, Mugge led the group at IBM that created the ThinkPad personal computer. Mugge's task force was able to cross the so-called Valley of Death, the chasm where ideas often die.

Today, he heads N.C. State's Center for Innovation Management Studies, a small but influential think tank. His drawing is an illustration of why some companies thrive but many don't.

"There's HI," Mugge says. "And that's the resources and time you're allocating to defending current business." His marker traces a second curve. "There's Horizon 2 that builds on that, and that may be the next two to three years." This might include new products already in the pipeline. And then he draws Horizon 3, "where you're looking at options."

"Pure research," in Mugge's words, that leads to a new business model, a really blockbuster product.

"But when we go into companies and actually look at their portfolios, all the resources are here in current operations." And that's how companies eventually fail.

CIMS has been coaching and researching innovation since its founding in 1984 by Alden Bean at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. It moved to N.C. State in 2000. Aided by initial funding from Bethlehem Steel, Procter & Gamble and others, Bean and his successors built a network of more than 100 experts in academia and industry to help companies diagnose their cultures, improve innovation management and harness Big Data technology to find valuable insights, markets and business partners. The group remains self-supporting, though N.C. State provides office space.

If you are wrestling with how to grow revenue, the CIMS website provides nearly 30 years of its newsletters--a readable, searchable body of research that explains how to grow. Its experts have learned why most innovation initiatives fail...