STRATEGY AND INNOVATION
In today’s complex and demanding world, innovation stands out as a must, not just as a process or a promise.
The word innovation (created circa the 15th century) is now being touted in speeches, articles, and conferences. Like the word strategy, it risks being overused. Speed of change is also at work: what was innovative last week has become mainstream this week, the next generation of a product is just around the corner, dissemination of an idea is almost instantaneous.
Innovation must remain at the core of an enterprise and not ‘lost in translation’ because innovation is ‘human progress’!
Here are some of my thoughts* on the topic:
. For innovation to be real, it must produce a benefit - either functional, emotional, life changing or social. The result can be a product, a process, a business model, a service, a technology
. Innovation must produce value and be sustainable. In essence, innovation must be novel and useful
. What matters the most is to produce Disruptive (or Discontinuous) Innovation, as opposed to Incremental Innovation. Using the process of Open Innovation, teams and ecosystems can collaborate and co-create with others, leveraging leading edge tools and know-how into projects. Thus, they ally their skill and people set with enterprise, government, and academia to create impact
. As a strategist, this translates into performance, productivity, market access and penetration, as well as brand equity
. Today, as part of any company strategy, senior executives, owners, and board members should ensure that their organizations develop their own innovation strategy, both actively and proactively.
. From a strategic perspective, it also means that vision, mission, leadership, and values must make room for a culture of innovation, A culture which promotes ‘giving permission’, putting an explorer hat on, experimenting -with seed funding, creating an ‘innovation lab’, accepting (and learning from) failure, and enabling a ‘stick-to-itiveness’ attitude.
The Innovation Challenge is ON!
For these reasons, I am glad to join the Innovitech Board of Directors. I was impressed by the people, their passion, and the depth of expertise that they bring. I am excited by the possibilities and I look forward to bringing my own expertise to the ‘Innovitech School of Innovation’.
Stay tuned!
*Sources: the author, Procto, Harvard Business School, The Oslo Manual, European Commission Green Paper on Innovation
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