Ocado Technology began life as a software company, developing the technology to enable online grocery retail, growing to become the largest online-only grocery retailer in the world. As Ocado Chief Technology Officer Paul Clarke notes, the company has become a hardware company, as well, for example developing robots that pick the groceries for customers. By rethinking the customer journey, the use of technology, including artificial intelligence to help with anticipatory or predictive ordering, Ocado has been able to raise profit levels in a legendarily low margin industry. The company has been able to use some of those profits to invest substantially in research and development. Ocado began life competing with traditional grocery business.

It's no secret that Google is one of the most innovative companies on the planet. Besides pioneering and then dominating the search industry, it has also become a leader in developing futuristic technologies such as artificial intelligence, driverless cars and quantum computing. It has even launched a life science company. What makes Google so successful is not one particular process, but how it integrates multiple strategies into a seamless whole. For example, Google Brain started out as a 20% time project, then migrated out to its "X" Division to accelerate development and finally came back to the mothership, where it now collaborates closely with engineering teams to build new products. Yet perhaps its most important strategy, in fact the one that makes much of the rest possible, is how it partners with top scientists in the academic world.