Publication Harvard Business Review
Date (months/year) January-February/97 
Author(s) W. Chan Kim - Renée Mauborgne
Title Value Innovation:  The Strategic Logic of High Growth 

 

 

shield
 Harvard Business Review
 
 

Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic of High Growth

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
 

 

     Why are some companies able to sustain high growth in revenues and profits--and others are not? To answer that question, the authors, both of INSEAD, spent five years studying more than 30 companies around the world. They found that the difference between the high-growth companies and their less successful competitors was in each group's assumptions about strategy. Managers of the less successful companies followed conventional strategic logic. Managers of the high-growth companies followed what the authors call the logic of value innovation. The authors tell the story of the French hotelier Accor, which discarded the notion of what a hotel is supposed to look like in order to offer what most customers want: a good night's sleep at a low price. And Virgin Atlantic challenged industry conventions by eliminating first-class service and channeling savings into innovations for business-class passengers. Those companies didn't set out to build advantages over the competition, but they ended up achieving the greatest competitive advantage.  

 


W. Chan Kim is The Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chair Professor of International Management at INSEAD, France.

Renée Mauborgne is The INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and Affiliate Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD.  She is also President of ITM Research. 
  

For a complete list of Professor W. Chan Kim's articles in:

Harvard Business Review
 

shield