iMovation

The Sunday Economic Times has an interesting article today about Imovation - the process of imitating innovation and being successful at it. Do you know that Apple has not presented a single original product to the market? The computer was invented by IBM, Sanyo created the first MP3 player, Blackberry the first smartphone, and Microsoft invented the Tablet. Yet, none of these created as much hype and excitement until Apple added the "i" to them! Jobs wasn't the only one to be imovative. Walmart made discount stores famous, but the idea first came from a little-heard company called Korvette. A burger today means MacD, but it was first presented by White Castle. Similarly, Amex made credit cards a household name, but not before Diner's Club had come to market with it. And we all know about IPL vs ICL here in India.

Imovators have one major advantage - they already have the benefit of the R&D, market research, and all the hard work the innovator has put in. All you got to do now is improve on it!