Become a Champion of Innovation

Spring has brought forth a spirit of new beginnings, and as we look at what’s new and what skills we can add leverage or  focus on in the next quarter, we believe the emphasis should be on how to champion innovation within your business.

In the past, innovation was considered “hot,” now it is often a matter of business life and death.

We are seeing this in the media sector with newspapers shuttering and other print media consolidating as consumers move from ink on paper to on-demand digital media and entertainment. There is a growing body of thought and research suggesting the ability to systematically innovate may be the only truly sustainable competitive advantage in this new globalized digital and social economy.

“Conventional” structures and approaches are losing steam.

The reasons are not hard to understand. Conventional structures are breaking down, and conventional strategic approaches to growing market share are losing relevance in today’s new digital and social economic reality. In addition, globalization seems to be increasing competition, or supply, more than it is increasing demand. The conventional protections of regional markets are exposing firms to move forward in a more competitive environment than ever before.

There are examples galore, but consider Dell and HP, beating themselves bloody battling for market share in a business sector that has commodity stamped all over it. Now, compare them to Apple and Samsung, which have made innovative design the sine qua non of their business strategies. One company (Dell) is fighting off Carl Ichan (a corporate raider) while the other (Samsung) is achieving 20%+ CAGR growth in sales and profits. Innovation is the major distinguishing factor.

“Wait,” you say, “how can we compare companies serving the enterprise IT market with one selling consumer electronics and phones?” That’s exactly the point. Apple and Samsung have migrated away from a battle with multiple competitors over an existing market and, through a systematic focus on innovation, positioned themselves in largely (or wholly) new markets.

But while it is clear when you consider an Apple, Samsung, Southwest Airlines or Starbucks in retrospect, building in that kind of innovative thinking into your organization for future planning is more of a challenge.

So, how do you create, lead and sustain innovation?

Here’s OUR TOP 5 BEST PRACTICES to take your innovation to the next level.

1. Build up your tolerance for failure. By its very nature, innovation implies risk, and by nature, risk implies failure. The bigger the odds, the more common the result will be failure. If your organization can’t handle failure, then the spirit of innovation will be undermined. Google’s innovation strategy is to “morph” failed projects, rather than terminate them. The project may have failed, but there is almost always some kernel of value that can be reseeded somewhere else.
2. Break a rule. What is most sacrosanct about the way things are currently being created and executed.  What changes need to be made from the conventional, “this is the way it  has always been done”.  View what it looks like and what needs to be done to turn that rule on its head. In the disruption, you may well find that opportunity for value innovation.
3. Take one brand value/attribute and own it. Can customer service be construed as “innovation?” Hoteliers universally will tell you that they live and die by their “hospitality,” the quality of the customer’s experience. Yet Starwood and Four Seasons were able to separate themselves from the pack by creating brands that considerably exceeded customer’s expectations for service and this differentiated their brands in the premium/luxury segment creating huge growth and profit opportunities.
4. Find innovation everywhere. Everyone has to be included in the process. Everyone knows Wal-Mart’s story by heart, how its innovation in IT delivered a cost advantage that it translated into the most basic of value innovations: everyday, low prices. It also points out the importance to looking for innovation everywhere. What was the last innovation you got out of Finance? Procurement?
5. Look to the edges of your organization. That can mean the outlying offices. Often your employees there will be confronting the “real world” in a way that the main office, bound up in the status quo, really can’t. It can also mean looking for innovative ideas from your new employees. Often someone with three months on the job understands enough about how the organization works to have some insight into what the organization is supposed to be doing, yet still has the ability to take a clear-eyed look at how well it does it.

As part of your role as CEO or ME, Inc. be the champion of innovation, the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) if you will.

Make innovation a top value and priority and build it into the fabric and culture of the organization. It’s not only about marketing, strategic planning, product development, or any single functional area. It’s about eliminating roadblocks within the corporate culture that work against grassroots innovation. Ultimately, innovation has to come from the top including making it culturally acceptable for individuals and teams to fail in order to test and try several new directions until you find the clear path in which to prosper as a business.

As always, we want your feedback!  Contact us here.