Even if you are successful now, how will you sustain that success? Some innovation perhaps?

You get the impression that for some people innovation is a flash of inspiration, which you bang into production or service delivery, and wallop all the cash flows into your bank account. Do you think?

I was reading an interview Apple's Tim Cook in Fast Company magazine about that company playing the long game. It is clear that Edison's quote that genius, and by implication innovation, is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is true for Apple. Apple have persisted with, for example, their Maps app, the launch of which was greeted with derision and now is more used than Google Maps on iOS. It seems from the article that working away at innovation, especially to get a great customer experience, has been the Apple way for a long time.

Innovation is about persistence as the article shows. I seem to recall in the dim and distant past that Microsoft had to persist with and really work at Windows in the '80s and '90s. The question is, are you as a business owner or manager prepared to take a long-term view about innovation? All too often it seems that the default position is short-term profits and a lack of a commitment to the future. Is it wise to leave the future to chance?

How far into the future is your business prepared to look and commit? What can you do to begin to take a longer term view?