Balance your portfolio

- Are your innovation efforts 2 truly balanced and driving sustained growth? 3 I bet they're not. 4 Similar to how you track a financial portfolio, 5 you have to track your innovation portfolio, 6 and make sure the balance of opportunities 7 matches your strategic goals. 8 Start by looking at all the initiatives 9 that you've launched in the last 12 months, 10 both big launches and small improvements. 11 Everything counts. 12 Now, tag each one of those 13 by one of four categories. 14 First is business as usual. 15 These are things or projects 16 that you had to do to stay competitive. 17 Next is incremental. 18 Small improvements for your existing offerings. 19 They usually are low-risk and low-investment. 20 Then it's new to us. 21 Projects completely new to your org, 22 and allowed you to better meet consumer needs, 23 or be more competitive in your industry. 24 Finally, breakthroughs. 25 These are innovations 26 that are new to your company and the market, 27 and they could potentially change the industry. 28 Once you've categorized the projects, 29 look at the number of opportunities 30 or percent of investment in each of those four categories. 31 Now, based on your current strategy, 32 do you have the right mix to meet your goals? 33 So for example, if you're lacking a competitive edge, 34 you might want more breakthrough ideas. 35 Are you concerned about increased costs? 36 You might need to lean more on incremental ideas right now. 37 A balanced portfolio is great 38 because you maintain business as usual 39 while also fostering breakthroughs. 40 You need both. 41 Assess your innovation efforts 42 and drive more sustained growth, 43 so you can be more competitive in the long run. 44 Take a look and balance your innovation portfolio today.