The climb in the United States stock market during the last year has been greeted warmly by many, investors especially. This does not, however, take away the day-to-day challenges most businesses face. Think stiff competition, shrinking demand, and squeezed profits. The newspaper and magazine industries can certainly attest to that. Many have been forced to close their doors, consolidate, or let people go to survive, never mind thrive, while the stock market has reached previously unimagined new heights.

What to do? Not surprisingly, the rapid growth, rising market valuations, and media coverage of companies like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix—all of which seem to largely defy the tough day-to-day reality others face—have led many to see technology innovation as the answer. But is it? Is technology innovation the answer everyone thinks it is for firms that want to go beyond competing, create new markets, and achieve rapid growth as these giants have? Our research, as laid out in our book Blue Ocean Shift (Hachette Books, 2017), suggests no.

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