"We're not afraid of occasionally falling flat on our face," says Richard Branson, Virgin Group CEO. And therein lies a noteworthy difference in thinking about innovation that obviously has implications in the global telecom business. One of my business associates at Verizon would react in horror if anybody suggested Verizon itself should be more venturesome in trying new things. "We have a reputation to protect," he constantly says.
Of course, so does Virgin Group. But that's one reason why innovation is going to come from outside the ranks of the tier one global carriers, though some carriers are showing themselves more amenable to working with innovators.
Virgin, like Google, has a culture that values experimentation and risk-taking. And if the game is innovation, as I suspect virtually everybody in the global telecom business would acknowledge is the case, then the likes of Virgin and Google, which also isn't afraid to try things that don't work, is the way forward. on the innovation front.
What the incumbents can do is figure out how to work with Google. That's heresy in some quarters, but the conclusion seems logical enough. If innovation is essential, and if one knows one cannot innovate quickly, or take many risks, as a matter of policy, then one has to have partners who will do that on one's behalf.
And as the graphic suggests, even successful and important innovations ultimately can run out of steam. Dell turned the PC distribution business upside down at one point. But its competitors have long since caught up, leaving Dell the contestant that has to change.
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