The CEO Refresher - Put Yourself out of Business! Peter Duncan of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning writes an interesting piece on the reasons to innovate which includes the main reasons why companiies don't innovate - Mainly because companies don't feel its importance to when they are already being successful at what they do (a false security); And the other reason being the knee jerk reaction of cost cutting existing products that are caught in a competitive squeeze.

He follows this up with saying that the "fundamental building blocks of innovation are IDEAS, KNOWLEDGE and A PROCESS for translating these into tangible services and products in the market." Pretty good stuff.