Innovation Strategy: Your Best-Selling Product Is Your Biggest Liability

Most Companies Don’t Innovate. They Optimise.

For a long time, I thought innovation strategy meant making things better.

Faster. More powerful. More features. More settings. More buttons.

That’s what we usually call innovation - but it isn’t. It’s optimisation.

True innovation is something very different, and much rarer.

The Comfortable Lie of “Slightly Better”

Look around and you’ll see it everywhere.

Cars with more horsepower, more screens, more driving modes. Phones with better cameras, thinner bezels, marginally longer battery life. Pressure washers with more PSI… and now apps.

None of these are bad products. They sell well. They’re safe.

But they all share the same flaw: They assume the existing solution is the right one.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford

That quote gets overused, but it’s still misunderstood.

People didn’t want faster horses. They wanted to get from A to B quicker, safer, and more comfortably.

The horse was just the current method.

Consumers Don’t Want Products. They Want Outcomes.

This is the part that’s uncomfortable for big businesses.

People don’t want a pressure washer. They want a clean car and a clean patio.

Cleaning is not the desire. It’s the necessary inconvenience to reach the outcome.

And yet, most R&D budgets are spent making the inconvenience slightly more efficient.

More power. More efficiency. Better ergonomics.

Again -useful, but not transformative.

Why True Innovation Rarely Comes from Big Companies

Here’s the brutal truth:

Almost no one inside a multi-billion-pound organisation is willing to stand up in front of the board and say:

“I want to spend our R&D budget creating something that could make our most successful product obsolete.”

That’s not courage - that’s career suicide.

True innovation threatens:

• Existing revenue streams

• Existing teams

• Existing expertise

• Existing identities

So instead, innovation gets safely redefined as iteration.

“Every successful company eventually becomes the thing it once disrupted.” - Clayton Christensen

The Idea That Never Makes It Past the Boardroom

Imagine proposing this:

“Instead of building a better pressure washer, we invest in developing a coating for cars and patios that means they never need cleaning.”

From a consumer perspective, it’s perfect. From a boardroom perspective, it’s terrifying.

Because if it works:

• The product category disappears

• The aftermarket disappears

• The repeat purchase disappears

And yet… that’s exactly what customers would choose.

Not because they hate your product - but because they never wanted it in the first place.

The Garage Problem

The irony is this:

While large companies protect their existing products, there are always a few kids in a garage somewhere trying to eliminate them entirely.

They don’t have:

• Shareholders to reassure

• Legacy revenue to protect

• Organisational politics

They’re not asking, “How do we sell more of this?” They’re asking, “Why does this exist at all?”

And eventually - maybe in 1 year, 10 years, or 100 years - someone gets it right.

“Disruption doesn’t announce itself politely.” - Unknown

Why This Hit Home for Me

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve noticed how often we confuse effort with value.

We celebrate complexity. We reward incremental progress. We optimise the wrong thing because it’s measurable.

True innovation isn’t about improving the product. It’s about questioning the problem.

And that requires a level of honesty that most organisations aren’t structurally designed to handle.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Any company that refuses to invest - at least partially - in true innovation is eventually doomed.

Not because they’re lazy. Not because they’re stupid. But because they’re rational.

And rational behaviour inside a successful system is often exactly what leads to its collapse.

“The greatest threat to tomorrow’s success is today’s success.” - Unknown

Final Thought

Innovation isn’t making a better version of what you sell.

It’s having the courage to ask:

• What outcome does the customer actually want?

• What would eliminate the need for our product entirely?

If you’re not willing to explore that question, someone else will.

And they probably won’t be asking permission.

If you found this article useful, you may also enjoy:

• Why sales is the lead function in any business - and why everyone hates that - Sales Leadership

• Your Best-Selling Product Is Your Biggest Liability - Innovation Strategy

• The Difference Between Managing Revenue and Leading Growth - Growth Leadership

• When a Market Leader Starts to Lose Market Share and How to Stop It - Market Share Loss

• How Leaders Turn Market Volatility Into Competitive Advantage

FAQs:

What is an innovation strategy?

An innovation strategy defines where and how a business intends to create new value rather than simply improve what already exists. It should connect customer problems and desired outcomes with choices about products, services, technology, business models and future capabilities.

What is the difference between innovation and optimisation?

Optimisation makes the existing solution better. Innovation questions whether the existing solution should exist at all. Improving a product's speed, power, features or efficiency can create value, but it still assumes the current product or solution is fundamentally the right answer.

Why can a company's best-selling product become its biggest liability?

Successful products create revenue, expertise, infrastructure, incentives and organisational identity around the existing solution. That makes it increasingly difficult for the organisation to support an innovation that could undermine that success. The product generating today's profits can therefore become one of the biggest barriers to creating tomorrow's business.

Why do successful companies struggle to innovate?

Success gives organisations something valuable to protect. Investment decisions are naturally influenced by existing customers, revenue streams, capabilities and expectations. As a result, improving the established business can appear more rational than investing in an uncertain idea that could eventually replace it.

What is the difference between product innovation and true innovation?

Product innovation can involve meaningful improvements to an existing product. More fundamental innovation asks a different question: is there a better way to deliver the outcome the customer actually wants? That can lead to a different product, service, technology or even business model.

Do customers actually want products or outcomes?

Customers generally buy products because they enable an outcome. Someone buying a pressure washer ultimately wants a clean car, patio or other surface. Recognising the underlying outcome allows businesses to explore solutions beyond simply making the existing product better.

How can businesses identify the outcome customers really want?

Ask what the customer is ultimately trying to achieve and then repeatedly question why the existing product is necessary to achieve it. Separating the desired outcome from the current method can reveal opportunities that conventional product-development processes overlook.

Why isn't asking customers what features they want enough for innovation?

Customers usually describe their needs through solutions they already understand. Asking how to improve an existing product can therefore generate useful incremental improvements without revealing fundamentally different ways of solving the underlying problem. Businesses need to understand the outcome behind the request, not only the requested feature.

What questions should companies ask to encourage true innovation?

Two powerful questions are:

What outcome does the customer actually want?

What would eliminate the need for our existing product entirely?

The second question is deliberately uncomfortable because it forces the organisation to consider solutions that may compete with its existing business.

Why do large companies favour incremental innovation?

Incremental innovation is easier to forecast, justify, resource and measure. It builds on capabilities the organisation already possesses and usually supports existing revenue rather than threatening it. More disruptive ideas involve greater uncertainty and can challenge established organisational interests.

What is the innovator's dilemma?

The innovator's dilemma describes the challenge successful incumbent businesses face when potentially disruptive innovations initially appear less attractive than serving their existing customers and improving established products. Decisions that appear rational in the short term can therefore leave the organisation vulnerable to new forms of competition.

Why can existing revenue prevent innovation?

Existing revenue creates powerful incentives to protect what already works. An innovation that threatens a profitable product may also threaten budgets, teams, manufacturing assets, distribution models and individual careers. Organisations can therefore reject ideas that are attractive to customers because they are unattractive to the existing business model.

Should companies develop products that could replace their existing products?

Potentially, yes. If a technology or solution could eventually make an existing product unnecessary, the strategic question is whether the company would rather participate in that disruption itself or leave the opportunity entirely to somebody else. Cannibalising existing revenue can sometimes be preferable to allowing a competitor to do it.

What is product cannibalisation?

Product cannibalisation occurs when a new product or service takes sales from one of a company's existing offerings. Although businesses often try to avoid it, deliberate cannibalisation can sometimes be strategically sensible when customer needs or technology are moving towards a better solution.

Why are start-ups sometimes better at disruptive innovation?

Start-ups generally have less existing revenue, infrastructure and organisational identity to protect. They can ask “Why does this product need to exist?” without worrying that the answer might undermine a large established business. Incumbents often face much stronger internal incentives to preserve the existing category.

How can established companies protect themselves from disruption?

They can allocate some resources to opportunities that challenge rather than simply improve the existing business. This may require separate investment criteria, teams or structures so that early-stage ideas are not judged entirely against the economics of mature products.

Should businesses stop optimising existing products?

No. Optimisation can create significant customer and financial value and should remain an important part of innovation activity. The danger is confusing optimisation with the entirety of innovation. Businesses need to improve today's products while also questioning whether those products will remain relevant tomorrow.

How much should companies invest in disruptive innovation?

There is no universal percentage. The appropriate level depends on the industry, technological change, competitive environment and maturity of the existing business. The important principle is that some resources should be protected for exploring ideas whose purpose is not simply to improve today's products.

How can leaders create a culture that supports real innovation?

Leaders need to make it legitimate to challenge successful products, established assumptions and current business models. Employees are unlikely to propose disruptive ideas if doing so threatens their credibility or career. Innovation therefore depends partly on whether the organisation makes constructive challenge psychologically and commercially possible.

How should businesses evaluate disruptive ideas?

Disruptive ideas should not always be judged using the same financial expectations as established products. Leaders should examine the customer problem, potential outcome, strategic implications, assumptions and learning required before demanding the certainty expected from a mature business case.

What is the biggest mistake companies make with innovation?

One of the biggest mistakes is asking:

“How can we make our product better?”

without also asking:

“Why does the customer need our product in the first place?”

The first question encourages optimisation. The second creates the possibility of discovering an entirely different solution.

Can today's competitive advantage become tomorrow's weakness?

Yes. Capabilities, products and business models that create today's advantage can make organisations reluctant to embrace something fundamentally different. The stronger the existing business becomes, the more difficult it can be to support an idea that threatens it.

What is the biggest threat to successful companies?

One of the biggest threats is becoming so focused on protecting today's successful business model that the organisation fails to recognise a better way of solving the customer's problem. Success can create resources for innovation while simultaneously creating incentives to resist it.