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Futurist Report: Innovating in Good Times and Bad

Lessons from 12 Global Innovators

In the current economic climate, the discipline of innovation is taking a different form. Leading organizations recognize the importance of investing in their futures to put themselves 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 paper is available free of charge.

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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:

  1. The importance of defining innovation. 
  2. Embracing "innovation inside."
  3. Shifting from problem-solvers to problem-definers.
  4. Role of the innovation team: one size doesn’t fit all. 
  5. Rewarding is more about ‘how’ than "how much."

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.

Client Quotes

  • “futurethink's proven methodology, research, and tools help ensure we're always ready to meet the evolving public service challenges of tomorrow.”
    Sandy Stosz, Rear Admiral, United States Coast Guard United States Coast Guard
  • “futurethink made the topic of innovation, which means different things to different people, real, meaningful, and actionable.”
    Steven Rubinow, Chief Information Officer, NYSE Euronext NYSE Euronext Logo
  • “futurethink made my leadership team think in new ways and helped us develop winning business ideas right in the room. My team now embraces innovation rather than fearing it.”
    Mary Fennoglio, Managing Director, Citigroup Corporate Investment Bank Citigroup
  • “futurethink is enabling us to build critical innovation skills and share best practices across our global organization.”
    Jeff Honious, Vice President of Innovation, Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier
  • “Working with futurethink was a very rewarding experience for our team. They brought a great combination of provocative outside ideas, market perspective and a program design that challenged us to think of our own business in more innovative ways.”
    Jim Daly, Vice President of Human Resources, Standard & Poor's Standard & Poor's
  • “futurethink is always thinking ahead about learning and 'innovate' it before we ask! Their programs have been a huge success with our teams.”
    Director of Learning & Development, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Sonovian Pharmaceuticals
  • “Any innovative company must develop processes for understanding and responding to consumer needs in a very focused way. Otherwise, they're just inventors, they're not necessarily innovators.”
    Tony Tomazic, Director of Consumer Innovations, Humana Humana
  • “futurethink's research and 'how-to' tools have been essential to building our innovation program.”
    Cindy Morgan, Innovation Manager, New England Federal Credit Union New England Federal Credit Union
  • “The futurethink workshop not only provided an incredible jolt of energy to our collective innovation efforts and established the common understanding of innovation concepts, but it was also a wonderful team-building event. I don’t think it could have been organized and conducted any better.”
    Michael Ripa, Manager, FRI Infomatics
  • “futurethink's sessions included excellent examples and energizing exercises that brought innovation to life. They got us to look at our business with new eyes.”
    Joan P. Lawrence-Ross, Chief Learning Officer, AXA
  • “The futurethink team did an outstanding job in designing and facilitating an innovation event for our senior leaders, many of who regarded this as the best innovation workshop that they had ever been a part of. I would recommend futurethink to any organization that is looking for clear and actionable pathways to Innovation.”
    Wayne Pethrick, Director, Marketing and Consumer Insights, Pitney Bowes Pitney Bowes
  • “Innovation is deliberate, if done well. There is a science and process to it. futurethink has done their homework to provide a wealth of practical knowledge to their customers.”
    Senior Vice President of Innovation, Wells Fargo Wells Fargo
  • “We need to look beyond our organization's walls to innovate.”
    Mehmoon Khan, Global Leader, Innovation Process Development, Unilever Unilever
  • “futurethink is the innovation expert. They fine-tune their training to our clients' needs. I'm constantly looking for new opportunities to engage them in our work.”
    Brian Weberg, Director, National Conference of State Legislatures
  • “If you don't innovate, be creative and look to the future and the possibilities of what will evolve over time, you will cease to be relevant.”
    Randy Voss, Senior Manager, Global Strategy & Business Development, Whirlpool Whirlpool
  • “If you don't make innovation a strategic part of your business plan and you don't drive that into the culture, I don't think you'll have a strong innovation pipeline.”
    Mark Hausfeld, Innovation Manager, Global Business Services, Procter & Gamble Procter & Gamble