Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry

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There is an interesting chapter on the future of LEGO where the author ponders how 3D printing, Minecraft and new internet tools might affect the long term future of LEGO as well. And yet the LEGO company were told by experts and consultants in the 1990s and 2000s that LEGO was dying, that kids no longer wanted to play with toys but instead wanted to play online and with computer games. And that advice, plus some changes in the way kids play and the global environment, led the LEGO company down a path of changes to the business that had terrible financial repercussions. Putting a survival plan ahead of a growth plan was challenging given that people were clamoring for the strategy - a road map for reviving profits and returning LEGO to the top of the toy industry. ... Right now, our mission is just to survive."

Recreating iconic LEGO models to provide hours of fun and nostalgia for the family with the LEGO Classic 90 Years of Play with another celebratory set still to be revealed,David Robertson is a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School where he teaches Innovation and Product Development in Wharton's undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs. From 2002 through 2010, Robertson was the LEGO Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Switzerland's Institute for Management Development (IMD), which received the #1 worldwide ranking by the Financial Times for its executive education programs. At IMD he was Program Director for IMD's largest program, the Program for Executive Development, and co-Director of the Making Business Sense of IT program, a joint program between IMD and MIT Sloan. Discovered uncontested, "blue ocean" markets, even as it thrived in brutally competitive red oceans

People tell us they love this course, with over 60% saying their expectations were exceeded and 100% saying their expectations of the course were met. Celebrating the role of play in the lives of world-renowned creatives such as Alicia Keys, Yotam Ottolenghi and Peggy Gou,I found myself pondering some of the topics that came up in both natural and more structured discussion even days later. I don't think I would have got the richness of this without the face to face course” Honouring awesome AFOLs by showing how they have never stopped playing, creating and inspiring us as a brand,

And giving our 24,000+ colleagues around the world time off to celebrate and experience the power of play together on June 10th on our annual LEGO Play Day. Family values have always been at the heart of the LEGO Group, which is still headquartered in Billund, Denmark, where Ole started making his first toys. To this day, it is still owned by Ole’s family with grandson Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen recently passing the helm to his own son, Thomas Kirk Kristiansen. In the end the company arrived at a point where many sets cost more to manufacture than they retailed for, while management was unaware of any issues, not talking to each other.This book is about the history of Lego and how they first became famous and successful, but it mostly is about the business decisions that lead to their near-collapse, and what the company did to turn itself around. This means this book has a lot of interesting parts about the company itself and the philosophy that drives it. It also has some long and astute observations about business decisions that are analyzed in how they can affect a company, and how they actually worked out for the company in question.