The best technology. The best employees. The biggest budget. The strongest research and development (R&D) department. Check, check, check, and check! If you think these are all the elements you need to build a consistently successful company, you’re wrong. Dan Adams says there is one other factor you’ll need to check off that list: an innovation strategy that works.

 “The best way to ensure your company will be a success is to deliver more than your share of customer value,” says Adams, author of New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth (AIM Press, 2008). “Specifically, you need to develop differentiated products that provide benefits your customers crave. Products they can’t get anywhere else at a comparable cost. But you shouldn’t be guessing about what they want.

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