In an effort to drive innovation, the factories were often developing new products or processes on different platforms.

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This requires innovation on the part of management to find new products, services, or processes that will help the firm generate new income streams.

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Does your finance department review all proposals concerning new products, distributors, manufacturing processes or market entries and comment on whether they meet internal hurdles for gross margin?

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Moreover, the rising tide of inventions that make one country wealthy benefits others that bring those clever ideas to market or simply make use of those products, processes and services.

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The innovations driving these products can be technological, they can involve processes, or they can draw on a disruptive business model.

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Thought processes and management structures are indistinct from the products or services they create.

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"The products in this market have focused either on individual objects or very specific processes between industries, " says Norbert Kriebel, an analyst with Giga Information Group in Cambridge, Mass.

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With fewer products or services to promise, all of the associated supply chain, facility, and support processes can be slimmed down, saving considerable money and energy.

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Employees suggest products, services and even processes that will improve the company, and their peers get to vote them up or down.

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