One on One with Deloitte Consulting's Jim Moffatt

As companies struggle with growth in the core of their business, clients ask all the time: What unleashes growth, year after year? Thanks to research and analysis, Deloitte Consulting has identified just how critical growth and market differentiation is to industry leadership. So how do you achieve it? Simple… innovation and it must be supported with meaningful investment, says Jim Moffatt, Chairman & CEO, Deloitte Consulting. Innovation is one of the surest ways for any organization to disrupt the core of their marketplace and to change the game, he says. "It's critical to building future businesses that will sustain the entire organization in future years," Moffatt says. "Innovation alone doesn't guarantee growth; but growth is impossible without it." Moffatt will expand on these thoughts as part of "Innovation and the Three Rules at Deloitte Consulting" presentation at the Consulting Summit in New York on Oct. 24.

Consulting: Why is innovation so important?

Moffatt: This is still a really difficult environment to operate in. The economy is still an issue and it is improving gradually in the U.S., it's still an issue because of the interconnectedness of the global economy. When you look at what's happening in Europe, China and the Americas makes the model complex. Then you add the pace of change with technology and what's happening and how it's driving disruption in a number of industries. The regulatory environment is definitely getting more challenging. It's a complicated environment and coming out of the downturn a lot of companies did a very good job of driving corporate earnings and profits by, basically, downsizing. And now they are faced with how to grow and the number one issue for companies, aside from those in the public sector, has been growth.

And that's where the three rules come into play. The three rules gets at the heart at what it is that drives exceptional financial performance over time. We did extensive research over four or five years and they looked at 25,000 companies over 50 years and what started to emerge was what underlies companies with exceptional financial performance is the three rules.