1. Consider the outcomes of the projects discussed in the case. In all of them, the payoffs are both larger and achieved more rapidly than in more traditional system implementations. Why do you think this is the case? How are these projects different from others you have come across in the past? What are those differences? Provide several examples.
2. How do these technologies create business value for the implementing organizations? In which ways are these implementations similar in how they accomplish this, and how are they different? Use examples from the case to support your answer.
3. In all of these examples, companies had an urgent need that prompted them to investigate these radical, new technologies. Do you think the story would have been different had the companies been performing well already? Why or why not? To what extent are these innovations dependent on the presence of a problem or crisis?

If necessity is the mother of invention, then capitalism is surely the mother of innovation. Companies are being driven to develop unique applications of undeniably cool technologies by the drive to create a sustainable competitive advantage. “At the end of the day, as cool as this thing we’ve developed is, it’s a tool,” says Stephanie Weren’t, Goodyear’s CIO. “It is meant to serve a business end. In our case, this tool lets us put out new, more innovative products faster than the competition.”