The answer is the disruptive innovator, an outsider, who creates a product or service for the non-existing consumer in a non-existing market for almost no profit.

It is a company's customers who effectively control what it can and cannot do.

Because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership.

In a large successful company where your power base as CEO isn't all that secure, it's hard for a CEO to pursue a truly disruptive strategy.

We are all trained to be data driven people, but no hard data exist about the future. Therefore, the only way to look into the future with any degree of accuracy is to use theory, statements of what causes what and why. If executives have the right theories in their heads, they can very quickly interpret market developments. They can identify what matters and why, and act accordingly. So we suggest decision-makers should start by gaining a deep understanding of the relevant collection of theories, and then be alert for signals that indicate certain types of developments.

Efficiency innovations provide return on investment in 12-18 months. Empowering innovations take 5-10 years to yield a return. We have ample capital - oceans of capital - that is being reinvested into efficiency innovation.

The innovations are far more important because the technology itself has now way to impact the world for good until it's embedded in the business model. Innovation it's the combination of the simplifying technology and the business model.