The World's Most Innovative Companies - Following on from Global Fortune's 'Most Admired for Innovation 2006' list BusinessWeek and Boston Consulting have lifted up the Hood on these Innovation companies to examine and share some of the best-practices in how they are achieving this.
There are many elements in this must read article that stood out for me including:
- Innovation Dimensions
- Innovation Metrics
- Corporate Change
- Innovation Obstacles
- The Wisdom of Crowds
- Rewards
- Ethnography
It's great to hear that more companies are realizing innovation isn’t just about developing new products and occurs across a whole host of 'Innovation Dimensions' such as technologies, strategies and business models to name but a few. This highlights how corporate innovation is changing and taking these “organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for growth and creativity”.
If you would like to read more about ‘Innovation Dimensions’, Imaginatik Research has identified 20 different types and has produced a research report upon the topic. To get a copy of the full research report on ‘Innovation Dimension’ by Imaginatik Research, please email research@imaginatik.com
With the widening of this pool of ideas the challenge for corporate innovators has now become about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. This is why measuring innovation through metrics is so vital. Innovation metrics are fundamental for organizations to be fully and properly cognitive of how their innovation process is performing and delivering.
However, there is a lot of debate on which metrics to use, such as the ratio of products that succeed, or the ROI of innovation projects and how to use them. This report highlights that company’s need between 8 and 12 innovation metrics, which could include numbers driven as well as subjective assessments. Thankfully some two thirds of managers in the report highlighted that metrics were used to select the right idea to fund and develop. Alarmingly though only 47% of them used them sporadically after a product or service was launched. This topic also opens up the debate about tying to tie incentives and rewards to metrics, which may then lead to inappropriate behavior by managers as they play the system.
This is good read and opens up a lot of debates as well as giving a glimpse on some innovation best-practices.
1 comment:
Innovation is Multi-Dimensional!
Innovation is the art and science of transforming great ideas (creativity) into new products and services. And, that means it's not just technology or new products themselves. It surrounds all aspects of creating product utility and emotional experiences derived from acquiring, owning, and using the product (or service).
Recently I read a white paper on Business Model Warfare that identified 37 innovation targets. http://www.innovationlabs.com/BusModelWarfare.pdf
Innovation is truly multi-dimensional. Being innovative is critical to survival in today's business jungle. It's absolutely essential to break away from group-think. Just because everyone else clings to the old and slow way of doing things doesn't mean you should follow the sheep to slaughter.
Innovation is important because life is imperfect. Innovation is critical to solve life's problems. Sure we could sit still, but where would that leave us? Consider this, without innovation we will continue to suffer pain and misery. Illness and disease will continue to ravage our bodies. Humans will continue burning fossil fuels, defiling the earth. And, besides, if everything stayed the same, we would soon grow stale. Humans are instinctively driven to explore, to create a better world, and then a better world still.
Michael Davis
Editor - Byvation, Unleashing the Power of Innovation
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