Ginni Rometty Quotes

Whatever business you're in - it doesn't matter - it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value.

In the private sector, there is always innovation. There's always change. There's always improving productivity, and if you're not leading that, you'll be passed and ultimately go out of business. So there's an urgency to constantly update and renew and to rethink your enterprise.

Entrepreneurship is all about an idea that creates differentiated business value to one's customers. You must be able to convince your customers about the benefits that association with you or your products will give them. People are ready to pay if they are convinced about your services or products.

No matter what business you're in, you can't run in place or someone will pass you by. It doesn't matter how many games you've won.

To thrive, all businesses must focus on the art of self-disruption. Rather than wait for the competition to steal your business, every founder and employee needs to be willing to cannibalize their existing revenue streams in order to create new ones. All disruption starts with introspection.

You've got to keep reinventing. You'll have new competitors. You'll have new customers all around you.

The most essential thing for us was to get the business model right, then put the world-class technology under it to support it. At Merrill, that meant not doing what people expected.

Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.

We recognize the need to adapt to a changing competitive environment.

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.

He who puts ... a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest.

Since I became CEO, 87 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 are off the list. What that says is that companies that don't reinvent themselves will be left behind. I also think that's true of people. And I think it's true of countries.

Competition is one of the most important drivers of innovation because you have to stay in the race. You have to think of something new, and if you don't, well, of course you should leave the market.

Competition can never be eliminated from this industry. There is nothing wrong with it. It keeps you on your toes, making you work harder.

Any business that does not innovate will fail over time.

You want to grow. To compete effectively - - even if you weren't going to grow, just to maintain your position - - you look at who you're competing with. And everyone you're competing with is changing to get better, sometimes dramatically.

Every day were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

In a business, you've got to move on.

The great thing about the business is how Darwinian it is. We have to swim or die - if you are found wanting over a period of time, you've either got to change what you're doing or find something else to do.

The only way to thrive is to innovate. It's that simple.

To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous.

You need more than just a great idea. Your product or service must add an enormous amount of value to some industry. If the idea isn't completely new, it has to be better, cheaper, or more efficient than what we already have.

In any business, you have to evolve.

It's important to remember that innovators in business don't always get a platform.