Innovative Manufacturers Center
Driving Manufacturing Growth and Job Creation in Central Pennsylvania
The Real Risk is Not to Innovate
March 26 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
The Real Risk is Not to Innovate
(1-hour, in-person)
The case for innovation and a clear, targeted strategy for planning and implementation that will help small- and medium-sized mature enterprises (SMMEs) thrive through reinvention and renewal.
In contrast to large companies, SMMEs are on their own to win or lose in the marketplace. They may lack the relative economies of scale and scope, available to large companies, to understand and invest in innovation. Often they are in a position of sustained disadvantage with no perceived path of renewal.
As SMMEs approach maturity, it is common for them to choose to only maintain what they believe to be the safety of maturity attained rather than to opt for a strategy that also includes constant reinvention and renewal. But as Bruce Vojak argues, this path of seemingly least risk and least resistance can be the most detrimental to the company in the long run.
The real risk is to not innovate.
Bruce makes the case to owners, advisors, executives, and leaders—as well as those in the trenches—of the value of innovation: why it’s worthy of investment and what it can do for the health and longevity of a company. He also details how innovation, and thus reinvention and renewal, can be most effectively and efficiently implemented. With case studies and narrative examples drawn from their time in industry and the academy, he will present a valuable strategy guide specific to SMMEs and to one of the biggest existential dilemmas they encounter.
Speaker
Spanning a career at the intersection of business and technology, Bruce Vojak has experienced and explored innovation purposefully and variously, first established as a successful technology practitioner and executive in industry and later, in academia, conducting groundbreaking research on the practice of breakthrough innovation across a broad cross-section of large, mature companies and industries.
He is co-author of No-Excuses Innovation: Strategies for Small- and Medium-Sized Mature Enterprises (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022), Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). A Senior Fellow with The Conference Board, he has served on the boards of JVA Partners, Micron Industries Corporation, and Midtronics, Inc.
Before founding Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, LLC, Bruce served as Associate Dean and Adjunct Professor in the top-ranked Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. Earlier, he was Director of Advanced Technology at Motorola, held research and business development positions at Amoco Corporation and was on the research staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Attendees will receive a copy of Bruce Vojak’s book, compliments of the Innovative Manufacturers Center (IMC).
No-Excuses Innovation
Join us at 5:00 p.m. for a Networking Reception following the 4:00 p.m. program!
Event presented by Innovative Manufacturers Center (IMC) in partnership with Saint Francis University.
