Author: Luca Savi, CEO

My last blog was about the value of INNOVATION.  I wrote that INNOVATION is critical to our long term success.  What about the value of IMITATION, as well?

What do you first think of when someone says “IMITATION”?  Do you think “copy cat”?  Cheap “knock off” of the original?  Poor quality?  Well, maybe it’s time to think again.

Recently I read a very intriguing article from the Harvard Business Review about IMITATION that made some very interesting points:

Many of the greatest success stories are based not so much on INNOVATION but rather on IMITATION.   Did you know Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, actually imitated the White Castle fast food model when opening his first restaurants?  As we all know now, McDonald’s is the largest and most successful fast food restaurant chain in the world-easily surpassing White Castle as the benchmark in the industry.  The same can be said for Visa and MasterCard which imitated Diners Club when launching what are now credit card empires.

I believe NIHS (Not Invented Here Syndrome) is a big problem in most companies and closes our minds to great ideas that may be all around us.  At Comau, if we want to be good at imitation we will not just wait for the idea, we will be proactive and search for the great idea to build off of. We won't just copy, but come up with an even better, less expensive idea, building our offer on the market reaction to the original idea. 

Of course, this is easier said than done because we aim to imitate the soul of an idea (the thing that really makes it tick) and not just its shell.

Imitation can be a very good thing and as the saying goes:  “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”