Innovation That Works!
I am giving a talk next week and I have been asked to give my views on innovation that works. Interesting question! After giving this some thought, I decided to focus on the below 3 kinds of innovation.
• Innovation that bring immediate results. This is the most typical kind of innovation that works. You innovate on products or services, they are successful and they bring up your revenues and profits.
• Innovation that helps your company build a technology and/or marketing-based platform that enables a company to bring out better innovation to market faster in the mid-or long term.
• Innovation that changes processes and/or helps develop a more innovative culture. Open innovation is a good example on this. This is about how a company innovates the way they innovate. Results might not be immediate, but they can be very powerful over time.
They are naturally related as success with number 2 and 3 will bring more ”immediate results” over time. This can serve as a reminder that it is more important to build sustaining innovation capabilities rather than just focusing on creating single products and services. As the saying goes: Innovation is not an event; it’s a process.
What do you think? What perspectives do you have on ”innovation that works”?
Hello Stefan,
thanks for your interesting posts.
Regarding this one and to answer the last question, I would say that the first "innovation that works" is either 100% chance, either a bit by chance and a lot thanks to the learning from previous failures. Then, when the successful innovation is reproduced once and twice, it is the result of a best practice consciousness and it is at this moment that innovation process starts to really take place in the innovative company. From here, the "Innovability" is on its way and will be constantly developed with methods, perseverance and open mindedness.