Successful small-scale and incremental innovations
Companies with very large R&D budgets are incentivized to pursue expensive, large-scale innovation efforts that have the potential to become blockbuster new products—and that those projects receive the bulk of R&D funding. The problem with this high-risk, high-reward strategy is that it may not pay off.
Successful small-scale innovations: spend small, but focus that investment on marginal improvements in the most valuable brands, aimed at solving real consumer problems, that consumers value and would pay a little more for.