INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS (IMS)

CENTRE

S E M I N A R A N N O U N C E M E N T

“Industry Dynamics:
Rethinking the Effects of
Velocity on Product Innovation”
Professor Ian P. McCarthy
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Technology & Operations Management
Beedie School of Business,
Simon Fraser University

Wednesday 13 April 2011 at 2:30 p.m.

Room B-06 Odette Building
Abstract:
Competitive advantages are temporary, especially in fast changing industries. A cover of Business Week
magazine asks “Is Your Company Fast Enough?”, and there are scores of popular business books and
magazines with titles such as “Fast Company”, “Business @ the Speed of Thought”, and “The Age of
Speed”. Such publications suggest that in fast moving industry environments, speed, and in particular
being fast, is an important factor in the creation and erosion of competitive advantage.
Focusing on new product development, I present a framework that dispels this notion that speed always
leads to business success. I explain that to simply characterize business environments as fast-changing
or highly dynamic, is to overlook the fact that the velocity of an industry - its rate and direction of change -
is composed of multiple factors, each with a distinct velocity of its own. These factors, or industry
dimensions as we call them, include: technologies, products, competitors, demand and regulations. It is
rare for an industry to be uniformly high-velocity in nature (i.e. all dimensions are changing rapidly and
discontinuously). Instead, businesses typically face what we call “velocity regimes”, patterns of multiple
velocities of all the different dimensions involved. Thus, I will argue that it is misguided to focus on
designing and managing a business that is uniformly fast. What’s important is determining your “velocity
regime” – the multiple different rates and directions of change in your world – and then ensuring that
different innovation activities are organized and coordinated to effectively respond to these different
velocities.

Dr. Ian McCarthy is the Canada Research Chair in Technology and Operations Management in the
Faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of Sheffield, and prior to joining Simon Fraser University he was a
faculty member at the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield.
Focusing on technology-based firms, Dr. McCarthy is well known for his work on how firms
should be designed and managed, in terms of their operations, so as to succeed in different
industries. He uses complex systems theory, evolutionary theory, and classification methods to
identify and map the different operational designs that firms must adopt. In particular, he is
interested in how firms differ in their new product development processes, R&D management
control systems, outsourcing practices, and collaborative networks. His research has been
widely published in leading engineering and business journals, including The Academy of
Management Review, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Production
Innovation Management, Technovation, and the International Journal of Management Science –
OMEGA.

*All Interested Researchers/Faculty/Students are Welcome to Attend*

Please reply to elyons@uwindsor.ca if you plan to attend.