This book's goal is to change the mind-set that imitation is an embarrassing nuisance residing at the margins of business life, bringing it into center stage strategically and operationally. When you are finished reading this book, you will not only appreciate the value of imitation but also be aware of its costs and risks. You will have a framework to use in identifying and developing imitation capabilities and learn how to approach, analyze, formulate, and implement a strategic plan to enable imitation and realize its potential. You will discover some of the main reasons for imitation successes and failures, and you will be able to choose from a repertoire of strategies to use in harnessing the power of imitation and resolving its central challenges.
Throughout this book, you will learn to see imitation and innovation not in contrasting black and white but in the various shades that connote their complementarities and synergies. You will come to see imitation not as an impediment to innovation but as a driver of innovation done right.
Chapter 2 provides a variety of lenses for looking at imitation. These perspectives are taken from disciplines such as biology, history, and the cognitive and neurological sciences. You will find that the sciences, which once looked at imitation as a primitive instinct, now regard it as a complex, vital, and rare capability of crucial importance for survival, evolution, and well-being.
Then chapter 3 explains why the age of imitation is upon us: why and how the codification of knowledge and the globalization and modularization of business are making imitation more prevalent, feasible, fast, and profitable than ever before, and why these trends are likely to persist and accelerate. Chapter 4 showcases case histories of one of the most complex challenges of imitation: the replication of a business model. Using Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, and Apple as models, we examine their imitation variants — successful and unsuccessful — and look for generalities that can be deduced.
Chapter 5 outlines the capabilities necessary to be a successful imitator, including the ability to reference and select the right models, the skill of deciphering the cause and effect underpinning a model's performance, and the proper execution of an imitation plan. Chapter 6 outlines various imitation strategies and offers an action framework built on key decisions, including where, what, who, when, and how to imitate. Finally, chapter 7 provides a convenient summary and action framework listing the ten rules of imovation.