Lowes and Innovation

Robotics, virtual reality and more.  Always interesting to follow.  Why are they doing this, and how does management integrate innovation  into business process?   How do they see value in their innovation labs?

Lowe’s innovates because it has to  by Al McClain  (And discussion) 

At last week’s Shoptalk conference, Kyle Nel, the executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, detailed why innovation is so important for retailers, primarily because the current pace of change is exponential. And yet, survival on incremental technological change alone may be impossible.

Mr. Nel said that when a new and different technology comes out (speaking not just of Lowe’s), it inevitably disappoints, investment falls off, but then a core group continues to work on it. At that point, it’s hard to figure out exactly what to work on during the “deceptive disappointment” phase, before the new and different tech comes back to market in a better form and more successfully. .... "