Uber, Apple and Facebook are considered three of the giants in the field of business innovation. The changes they have made to the business world have disrupted existing practices. However, besides being innovators these companies are also very good copycats. They have copied ideas from competitors, applied them to their platforms and disbursed among the widest audience due to their vast reach. Uber copied Lyft’s ride sharing model. Facebook adopted the check-ins from Foursquare and Xerox’s mouse and OS inspired Apple. In order to build a marketing oriented company, key customer acquisition channels in the industry must be researched and properly understood. Competitors’ best practices must be understood and adopted in case better than one’s own. Also constant experimentation has to be carried out. This involves methods such as A/B Testing, surveys and other means as well.

Source: http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/why-smart-people-copy-great-ideas/