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Chapter 10

Summary

In this chapter we have reviewed trends for the future in the four main drivers
of innovation: customers, technology, competition and the business environment.
We suggest that the need and opportunities for innovation will continue
unabated, but the next wave of technology will not further accelerate the rate of
change. However, new services and products will be targeted at more subtle
needs than before, and so it will be more difficult to define products in advance.
Organizations will have to be prepared to experiment more in the marketplace
and to accept that demand will be more difficult to predict, so supply chains
must be more flexible. And all this in a context of better informed customers and
more competitors, speaking our language and brought literally and metaphorically
to our doorsteps by improved travel and information technology. There are
exciting times ahead!