White Papers
Innovating in Good Times & in Bad
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Lessons from 12 Global Innovators
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In the current economic climate, the discipline of innovation is taking a different form. Leading organizations recognize the importance of investing in their future to be in a stronger competitive position in a post-economic crisis world. But what exactly are companies doing to stay ahead of the curve and how are they building their innovation programs to accomplish this? This download is
available if you register for free. Excerpt:
To understand the best practices, tactics, and techniques for driving a successful innovation program, futurethink conducted a series of interviews with leaders and practitioners within the field. The interviews offer a unique insider’s view into the world of innovation – what makes it work, what holds organizations back, and what critical advice new innovators need to know to be more successful with innovation overall. To gain a holistic understanding of these best practices, we spoke with a cross-section of innovators at both corporations and government organizations, within product- and service- driven industries, and at the leadership and practitioner level, globally.
What’s the secret to success? Five main themes from the interviews percolated to the top:
- The importance of defining innovation. Nearly every innovator with whom we spoke expressed the fundamental need to define what innovation is in the context of one’s organization and its goals.
- Embracing ‘innovation inside.’ Given the current state of the economy, innovators are increasingly focused on quick, inexpensive, low-risk ways to innovate internally. This type of innovation includes optimizing and streamlining internal processes, defining new customer segments, creating new distribution channels, or communicating both internally and externally in new and different ways.
- Shifting from problem-solvers to problem-definers. In the past, many organizations simply went after ideas and innovation without first defining the problems these ideas were meant to solve. But now, when resources are tight, organizations are realizing the importance of carefully defining problems first before seeking innovative solutions.
- Role of the innovation team: one size doesn’t fit all. Each organization we spoke with had some sort of formal innovation role built in, but the structure and role of this team varied across the board. Some groups were focused on facilitating and evangelizing innovation across the organization, while other groups focused on building ideas and seeing them all the way through to launch.
- Rewarding is more about ‘how’ than ‘how much.’ When it comes to rewarding and recognizing innovation, there is no single correct method. Depending on a given organization’s culture, innovation rewards look very different.
In this report, we’ll take a closer look at each of these findings. We’ll also share some of the advice our leading innovators had to offer to those who are just embarking on the innovation journey.
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