Author Archives: Andy Bruce
How on earth can companies compete in a global economy where staff costs in India are a tenth of those in the West and where Chinese companies are now looking to outsource their operations to cut costs further? We can not continuously improve our way out of the current challenges, rather we must fundamentally change what we do and how we do it – in short we must innovate. Some people think innovation is the generation of new ideas – but we would refer to this as creativity. Creativity is part of innovation but is not a substitute for it! Being creative and coming up with new ideas is all well and good but if no one puts them into practice then they are worth nothing to a business. For us innovation is the “commercial exploitation of ideas.” It needs to be a planned and proactive process.Innovation is …
Like any other core business process there are some ‘rules’ of innovation management which will maximise the probability of success. These come under what we call “The 6 Ps”:PLANNING – Innovation must be linked to strategySuccessful leaders link core business processes to their strategic goals and annual business planning targets, and innovation is no exception. Use a product-market matrix to clarify the extent and direction of your innovation. Without a strategic direction you run the risk of coming up with innovations that run counter to your businesses best interests!PIPELINE – Maximise your sources of ideasOnce you have linked innovation to strategy you need to generate ideas for performance improvement – but where do your best ideas come from? Ideas come from any part of your organisation; from Open Innovation to internal brainstorming activities. Whatever the source of the idea, you need an effective process to capture, screen, prioritise and …
