CORE BUSINESS
What is a core business?
Read More: Crossing Wires: Failing to Separate ‘Explore’ from ‘Core’ Business
A core business is the source of current revenues and profits for a commercial organization. Typically, the markets in which a core business operates have matured to the point where customers and competitors are known and there is some predictability to market dynamics.
See also: Explore Business
Are Core and Explore the same as Explore and Exploit?
Yes, core business is an alternate term for exploit. The Explore and Exploit distinction is used by academics to describe the challenges that incumbent organizations have with investing in disruptive innovation. However, exploit is considered by practitioners to be a pejorative term that implies a good/bad or right/wrong distinction between the two business models. This is misleading as any healthy portfolio requires businesses at different stages of maturity.
Related content:
- Will Amazon Last 100 Years?
- Crossing Wires: Failing to Separate ‘Explore’ from ‘Core’ Business
- Designing Ambidextrous Organizations with Executive Teams
Change Logic Awarded Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Award. 
