It’s amazing that the most successful companies do not usually come up with something totally innovative or inventive, but they do come up with a better process.

Google just improved the search process that Yahoo already had.

Facebook improved the social network, while Friendster, MySpace Orkut and others were already in the game.

Wonderbread popularized the sliced bread. The concept of slicing the bread was a process improvement.

Ford improved the car manufacturing process, but the cars did exist.

It’s interesting that ground breaking revolution is not critical to business success while process improvement is.

Einstein discovered ground breaking formulas for physics. Wright brothers invented the first Airplane. Thomas Edison invented the first working light bulb but they did not run businesses.

Of course large companies may have research and development divisions, but their focus is indirectly “process improvement” through innovation.