Operational Excellence - the mantra that came into fashion in the early nineties of the previous century and one that is still fanatically preached across the globe. It beholds the complete mastery of one's primary business processes. It allows for surgical accuracy in delivering output to spec. It lives in Centers of Excellence clustered on every continent. The business breathes, eats and drinks Lean, Six Sigma, 5s, TQM.

Who would have thought there could ever be a downside to delivering a job to perfection? Well, it turns out there is. Many of the process superstars that grew to dominate their markets through Operational Excellence have fallen prey to its stillborn twin: Systemic Inertia. Think Dell, Circuit City and even the superheroes at Toyota.

The following story is true for any business enviroment, whether it's CPG/FMCG, B2B, services, software, anything. It is most true for industry leaders. This is about your bread & butter having become a commodity and you being on your way out of business.

In 2001, Jim Collins presented a landmark study in his book 'Good to Great'. Now, less than a decade later, his conclusions appear to be crumbling to dust. Were these companies not so great after all? What happened to corporate greatness?

Organisations are variously good or bad at innovation. Whether they fit into the former or the latter category, all seem to feel the need from time to time to set up an innovation group that sits outside their normal brand teams or business categories.

Introducing Happen's first Hundred Innovation Quotes to spice up your reports when you can't find any cool maxims from Einstein, Edison or Grouch Marx.

Free to copy, distribute and retweet - as long as you refer to Happen^® or Happen.com as your source of inspiration.

We have plenty of ideas. Pretty much every innovation manager I have ever met has one big question on his mind – which ideas to choose to develop? If only I had a pound for every time I had heard the likes of “We have plenty of ideas around here it’s knowing which ones will be big that we need help with”.

Why do companies price at .99?

“Consumers ignore the least significant digits rather than do the proper rounding.”

Even though consumers can see the last digits of a price label, be they .95 or .99, they may still subconsciously be partially ignored. Some research suggests that this effect is enhanced when the pennies are printed smaller e.g. £1999. The effects is that consumers irrationally discount prices by much higher margins than the one or five pence discount offers, perceiving that they are being given a better deal, and thus encouraging a purchase. Various research pieces and case studies have shown that consumers are more likely to purchase items when they are suffixed by a .99 or 95 as opposed to either .00 or any other decimal combination. It would thus appear that consumers have become accustomed to such a pricing structure.

Driving back from Dover a few weeks ago I counted 37 police enforcement cameras and I doubt if I counted them all. I suspect they stood out so dramatically because I was on my way back from France where I don’t remember seeing a single one. The closer we got to the centre of London the more oppressive it felt, from every angle it seemed as if there was someone watching us.

On my last trip to Hong Kong I bought a new camera, the Canon G10. That in itself wouldn't have been so very interesting, were it not I already have the Canon G9. And I even have my old G5 still lying around. Why on earth am I so excited about this? What drives anyone to spend a significant amount of money on something which is going to give them something they more or less already have?

Over the last 15 years I have asked hundreds of people in workshops where they get their best ideas. The answers that come back follow a predictable pattern: in the shower, early in the morning, while driving, away from the office, when chatting with others and in the pub on a Friday night!

As the dust settles on the Christmas season the estimates are that retail sales will be about 2.5% up on last year. The internet’s share of sales has increased dramatically again and overall web based sales will be up around 50% on 2005. Meanwhile research conducted for eBay by ICM reports that Britons spent around £4bn on unwanted gifts. That’s equivalent to £92 per person and represents a third of all the presents bought!