Category: Innovation Perspectives
Innovation Perspectives is our monthly feature to present our loyal readers with different perspectives on a single topic all in one place along with the ability to compare, contrast and discuss them in the comments here on Blogging Innovation and in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn. September’s topic was: “Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?” Kevin McFarthing – A Rhetorical Question Jose Mello – Motivation for Innovation Steve Todd – Managerial Innovation Critical to the Core Mike Dalton – Building Core Competence Ric Merrifield – Is Innovation Becoming a Fad? If you would like to suggest a topic for next month’s Innovation Perspectives, or would like to contribute, please leave a comment or contact us. You can check out all of the ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles from the different contributing authors on ‘What do you consider the most important single development in innovation … Continue reading
This is the lost fifth ‘Innovation Perspective’ article that we were supposed to publish last month as part of a series from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?’. Here is the missing perspective in the series: by Kevin McFarthing It’s really a rhetorical question – should innovation management be a core competence? Well, of course it should, if you are serious about growing your business. Growth = survival more so now than ever before. If you’re lucky enough to be in an industry or company that can rely purely on market expansion for short-term growth, you’re unusual, and your position will be temporary. Imagine the CFO walking into the CEO’s office one Monday morning to declare that all financial records will in future be kept on Post-It notes. Or the Head of Regulatory Affairs in …
This is the fourth of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Jose Mello How to create an innovation strategy that fits the organization needs and culture? Innovation management, for sure, is a core competence to be developed in all companies. It is the best way of creating sustainable growth and surviving in such competitive scenario. But how to create an innovation strategy that fits the organization needs and culture? First of all, the company needs to think about what is your motivation to innovation. The employees of a company won´t become more innovative just because their senior management wants them to be. It is necessary to identify what is your reason to innovate, a common reason that … Continue reading
This is the third of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Steve Todd Gary Hamel, in his book The Future of Management, provides a framework for changing a command-and-control culture to an environment of empowered innovation. His bottom line is that corporations need to innovate, but not only in the “new product” sense. They must innovate in their methods of managing employees! This means that corporations must manage their innovators using methods and processes that have not yet been created. Hamel outlines four types of corporate innovation areas that merit consideration: Operational Innovation: this type of innovation, “which is about how the work of transforming inputs into outputs actually gets done “(taken from CuriousCat), rarely leads to … Continue reading
Leveraging Your Constraints This is the second of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Mike Dalton Most companies reinvest (aka spend) anywhere between 30 and 50% of their net income in R&D. However, even with that level of spending, most CEO’s are dissatisfied with the return on that investment. Getting more out of that investment requires a core competence in managing new product innovation. Easier said than done, but knowing where the leverage points are can dramatically speed improvement. Here’s how the five focusing steps of Theory of Constraints can help in this process. 1. Identify your innovation bottleneck and its constraints. To increase new product profits and time to market, you need to identify the bottlenecks … Continue reading
This is the first of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘Should companies treat innovation management as a core competence? And if so, how?’. Here is the initial perspective in the series: by Ric Merrifield My growing fear is that innovation is on course to become the fad of the day in the same way quality was in the 90s. For those of who missed, or were too young for it, the quality movement, it was everywhere. There was a big quality award called the Malcolm Baldridge award that top companies did everything they could to win. The premise was that everything needed to he high quality and at the time as a young Accenture employee, it actually seemed to make sense. Why wouldn’t you want everything to be high quality? These days it’s really obvious to me why … Continue reading
