Kaizen. Japanese for “improvement” is the word behind Toyota’s Total Quality obsession (known in the rest of the world as Continuos Improvement or Deming’s Cycle) it led Japan to victory on several industries, especially the auto industry. However in the software and mobile sectors Japan has lagged behind. Why?
Arguably Apple has achieved true innovation with the iPhone, it has redefined an entire industry. Newsweek does a very good analysis on this phenomenon. And the conclusion seems to be that to go beyond Kaizen, you need real innovation, and for that only revolutionary products will do, not continuos improvements but totally new answers to customer needs.
