Is incessant cost cutting or innovation the key to greater productivity and profits?
For Rowan Gibson, author of the best-selling books “Rethinking the Future” and “Innovation to the Core,” who spoke at a recent CoreNet Global meeting, the answer is a no-brainer…it is innovation. “Smart companies are not squeezing out dollars but rather creating value,” he explained. He pointed out that Apple’s success, which has seen a 3,000 percent growth in its bottom line, has been due to its evolution over time from Macintosh, iPod and iPhone to today’s Apple Stores, which generate $1.5 billion in new income or 20 percent of total revenue of the company. “Apple created wealth not by cost-cutting or consolidation but by producing wonderful things,” he said. “It is output that matters.” Many corporate real estate executives would agree that cost cutting has gotten pretty close to the bone. Gibson said that “innovation is the only tool left in the toolbox.” In fact, there are four lenses that constitute “a toolbox for innovation,” as he outlined: • Challenge orthodoxies and conventio
