So far we have been focusing on two ways of innovation — to make the existing products better and to disrupt the process. While making the existing products better, it is likely that our competitors will catch up. In disruptive innovation, we opt for revolutionary changes, and pioneer these before someone else does it. The illustrations are Apple, Uber, Tesla and Airbnb.

David Robertson, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, works on a third way to innovation. Though there is a product, it is not enough. A product must be surrounded by complimentary innovations, say a paint company provides a colour consultant and painting contractor. It means that the existing product can offer much more value by innovating around the product. A company can offer financing programmers. Even without changing a product, there are many ways you can innovate around it.