Forget rocket fuel, what it really takes to send something into orbit is money — lots of money. Yet SpaceX is doing it. How?
As this Harvard Business Review article points out, the secret to it’s success is due in part to the way the company has applied innovation to something that’s usually overlooked: cost reduction.
Key quote:
“In large companies, the task of cost cutting is invariably incremental and left to finance, which works with individuals or small groups within a specific department, region, or area of the business. On the other hand, the SpaceX approach innovates and transforms by looking at the entire business model instead of the parts. Cuts weren’t just made to the physical rocket itself but to everything surrounding it — overhead, support services, development timeframe, and more. With small teams and far lower overhead, SpaceX was able to go from incorporation to first space flight in six years.”
The lesson? If you really want to cut costs, look at the whole before you start reducing the parts.
To read the rest of the article, click here.