Corporations can spend on innovation—but rolling out a new product? That’s where things get ugly.
Innovation often looks like a shiny, manageable expense on paper. Corporations love to invest in R&D, hire consultants, and develop prototypes. Why not? It’s exciting, gets media attention, and gives execs something to talk about at conferences. But when it comes to actually launching a product into the market? The financials can get ugly, fast.
🔍 Here’s the thing: The cost of rolling out a new product is far more than just a bigger budget line item. It’s about overcoming entrenched supply chains, navigating legacy costs, and breaking into markets where competition is fierce and margins are tight. Worse still, this is where corporate decision-makers face the Innovator’s Dilemma head-on. They have to balance their profitable, existing products (think ICE vehicles) with untested, riskier options (think EVs), and all the while, their profits shrink in the new, low-margin business model.
🚗 Example time: As I mentioned in [*The End of an ICE Age*](https://www.askerov.pro/post/the-end-of-an-ice-age), automotive OEMs are stuck with low-margin EVs. Sure, they invested billions in R&D, but when it’s time to scale up production, they face a brutal rkeality: their well-oiled profit machines—the ICE vehicles—are slowly fading, and the margins on EVs are razor-thin. It’s no wonder some are backpedaling on EV rollouts.
⚖️ Why does this matter? Because corporations are often unwilling to fully commit to new product rollouts, they make erratic decisions—like delaying investments or hedging with outdated tech (hydrogen, anyone?). This is why the future doesn’t belong to incumbents. They’re too invested in the past.
🚀 So if you’re watching corporate giants talk about innovation but slow-walk new product rollouts, just know: the real costs of innovation are higher than you think, and for many of them, the math just doesn’t add up.
Follow me for more insights into innovation and cleantech scaleups. And drop me a line if you’re ready to disrupt with your own new product! 💬