ABSTRACT
The business prosperity rose is named 'innovation'. Similar to Shakespeare's plays, innovative value-creation encounters many plot twists some tragic in pursuit of customer moments of truth: product purchase, product usage, and repeat purchase. Innovation is a necessary part of inventing tomorrow. Civilization depends on innovation; innovation rescued humanity from privation. Nurturing creativity and innovation is a vital leadership competency. The stakeholders of private equity investments create both extrinsic and intrinsic value by applying to the innovative process Tom Morris' "seven Cs of success in business" described in The Art of Achievement. The innovative success that attracted private equity investment in a portfolio company may become collateral damage as a function of risk aversion traceable to a leveraged balance sheet. Invention may be necessary to innovation, but the litmus test for meaningful innovation is traction in the market. Two types of customer signals matter to engineering a market response: conscious needs; and latent needs.
