Innovation sweet spots

All businesses go through natural cycles of introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Companies that want to survive for more than one cycle will need to re-invent themselves before they die, but when is the right moment to do so? In his article on innovation sweet spots, Gijs van Wulfen argues that all companies can be grouped into two categories, the ones that want to innovate and the ones that must innovate.

The first category, the active innovators, give innovation priority already before reaching maturity. They do this both to grow their business and cultivate an innovation mindset. The second category, the passive innovators, wait until they get hit by a crisis, their markets saturate, or their business gets disrupted. They reorganize first and prioritize innovation only at the start of their decline stage when they really need to. 
The challenge for active innovators is to deal with a lack of operational urgency which makes it more difficult to create time for innovation, while there’s plenty of urgency for the passive innovators but often a lack of resources and a tight deadline. 

What is your company’s innovation sweet spot? Do you innovate before or after you’ve reached maturity?