@paul4innovating - Innovation Thinking and Resources

Is all investment about the future?

By @paul4innovating January 13, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation4 Comments

I was reading an article by Doug Collins on the “three wishes for the innovation practitioner for 2015” where he points out “2014 was the year for share buybacks and dividends“.

An article from Bloomberg reports that companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are “poised to spend $914 billion on share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings.”
95% of earnings – Doug rightly says “wow” and offers a thoughtful set of observations

“Every organization that enjoys free cash flow makes a decision on where to allocate that resource. If the opportunity available to the organization meets or exceeds the hurdle rate—the desired, expected rate of return—then, in theory, they invest in that opportunity. If not, then no: the organization returns the cash to the investors. Of course, earnings come after investments the organization makes in innovation—research & development expenses, for example. Many do invest a lot in R&D”

He then remarks “And yet…..and yet” ….

Where are the new feeding grounds of innovation?

By @paul4innovating January 4, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Innovation strategy, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

Credit Wildebeest migration, Kenya, by Bonnie Cheung — Wildebeest migration, Kenya by Bonnie Cheung

I am presently reading an early release draft of a book written by Mike Docherty of Venture2, on innovation, and I would certainly recommend the read when it comes out.

The book Collective Disruption will be available as of February 2015.

The book as Mike wrote to me, is aimed at corporate leaders, both in large and small companies, charged with new sources of transformative growth and makes the case for co-creating new businesses with entrepreneurial partners.

It builds on a foundation of open innovation, but is focused specifically on new business creation (vs core business support).

I know that Mike is passionate about the intersection of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship for co-creating new businesses and business models. As CEO of Venture2, a consulting and new ventures firm, he works with leading brand companies and start-ups to commercialize breakthrough new products and businesses.

Mike has experienced disruption many times.

My innovation wish for 2015

By @paul4innovating December 26, 2014Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

I would like to see emerge a different ‘sustaining’ capacity built around innovation as the continuous core, constantly evolving, adapting, learning and adjusting, in perpetual innovation motion.

A truly integrated innovation solution that sits in our organization to allow innovation to be fully leveraged and exploited.

We need to recognize innovation has many touchpoints and a myriad of dimensions that need to be aligned and integrated. I genuinely believe we need a solution provider, who takes a more holistic view of innovation management that can make a significant advancement on where we are today, in our processes and systems.

These need a total integrated solution as the approach. this has its complexities in the challenges but we do have the potential through technology deliveries, platform constructs, and using the flexibility and adaptability found in the cloud.

If we combine these technology enablers with our innovation management understanding, then we can begin to construct this systematically and thoughtfully. It is very achievable and necessary for our organization’s abilities to absorb and translate knowledge into innovative growth, something missing for many.

Dealing with Your Darwin Effect through Innovation

By @paul4innovating December 10, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

I have been working away, as my labour of love, frustration and sheer determination, on my thinking through the ‘harnessing’ of the dynamics within innovation, to offer organizations their innovation fitness and future landscape design, so as to radically alter their present capabilities and capacity to innovate.

The aim is to relate these to where your organization is in their existing capabilities, where they need to go, in identifying and clarifying the necessary capabilities they need to have, so as to achieve certain strategic goals and then, “we”, together, collectively prioritize the critical ones as ‘must have’ and then set about filling the gaps.

This is the innovative fitness journey needed to be travelled.

The building of those more ‘dynamic’ capabilities and competencies are the ones you need so as to provide for a more dynamic innovation environment and deliver unique capacity for your ongoing strategic goals.

Achieving a higher collaborative gear

By @paul4innovating December 6, 2014Molecules1 Comment

For a big majority of us, open innovation is now well established, it is part of our innovation furniture. The quest for many, today, is the search for richer engagements, possibilities and exchanges. We need to move beyond the existing boundaries and go deeper into the collaborative space.
I regard collaboration as the active ingredient, the yeast that allows our ‘daily innovation bread’ to rise. Getting all the parties ‘gathered around’ puts increased vitality, energy and commitment into working together over a project or idea.
As we learn to reach out and collaborate, exchanging perspectives and our different thoughts, it is in these interactions, in the many exchanges on-line and off-line that we move towards a real sense of achievement.
Allowing outside ideas through our doors
Open innovation has literally thrown open the doors, many of our research and development activities are increasingly relying on the input from outside. Open innovation is changing our behaviours.

Tackling the internal Jobs-to-be-done for improving Innovation

By @paul4innovating December 2, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Innovation Ecosystems, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

We are constantly nudged toward understanding the needs of customers through the jobs to be done approach to shaping our innovative solutions. So why do we still seem to not achieve this ‘higher purpose’ of providing solutions to customers’ needs?

Predictable growth has run its course as we live in unpredictable times; we need a better way to identify ALL those unmet needs that our customers have.

That need comes from knowing the “job which needs to be done”. We need to sharp shoot to hit clear targets, we need to become a lot more explicit in our knowledge of a customer’s unmet needs, and they need to make the connection of that need with our product (or service).

Mapping the hierarchy of customer needs

We need to map the jobs and generate desired outcome statements that are specific and of real interest to the customer, not our list of multiple ideas generated based on where we are or what we think we know. We need to build a hierarchy of customer needs.

By even attempting to follow a ‘needs first’ approach we are often left to figure out the unmet needs. The flaw lies in not having these fully understood. All needs can be captured but this requires combining a more rigorous, controlled approach, coupled with astute observations.

The key still requires us to accurately quantify the degree to which a proposed solution will increase customer satisfaction – and that means knowing the jobs they want to complete.

We need to segment by jobs and to do this we need to capture this in clear, precise job outcome given statements. We need to become clearer on the product, service or business model ‘job’ it is intended to perform, measured by a customer’s desired outcome.

I really believe our internal processes are letting us down.

So Welcome to the Age of Digital Innovation

By @paul4innovating November 28, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Innovation Ecosystems, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Digital technology is about to become the precursor for all the changes we have put off for years within our organizations.

We need to radically improve our abilities to engage, relate and discover new innovation opportunities at a completely different level of faster performance.

There are many issues both strategic and tactical to work through, to extract the rich potential from any digital transformation for new innovation growth outcomes

The final part of a seven-part series – new dawn or your worst nightmare?’

The Need to Automate the Innovation Process

By @paul4innovating November 27, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

There has always been a consistent call to automate the innovation process.

Now it might turn into a stampede, based on real ‘digital’ need.

We have made solid progress in the use of out-of-the box software for capturing ideas at the ‘fuzzy front end.’

We have developed pipelines and use product life cycle software systems to manage this through to commercialisation.

Yet today we still have a fragmented, often broken innovation process, very reliant on the manual processes, where the human intervention dominates.

Can this be changed? Technology must form a greater core of the innovation process.

The need to respond quickly to new business objectives

By @paul4innovating November 26, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

The business objectives will change as we invest heavily in digital technologies, as we increasingly recognize and embrace this changing world where digital knowledge and insights begin to challenge and change our existing frameworks of innovation thinking.

Part five of a seven-part series

The outcomes of the investment are expected to provide clear returns and these might include but are not limited to:

1) different customization of services 2) quicker response to market trends in new offerings 3) identifying real-time cost optimizations, 4) concentrating on faster, more accurate decision-making to give new competitive edges 5) better and more holistic R&D 6) automating even further the supply chain management, 7) alter your approach channels to market, 8) move your business into new adjacencies or even white spaces and finally 9) design new business models and value propositions.

There will be lots of new moving parts to grapple with to be future innovation agile.

IT is Struggling to be the Digital Technology Master

By @paul4innovating November 25, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

There is so much occurring in new applications and alternative solutions, it is a very tough position for most dealing in technology to truly master all of these breaking options they might have to consider.

It must be a little overwhelming when many responsible for IT have for years not had any strategic involvement and not been given clear line-of-business oversight.

Business management equally has over the years built up an ‘arm’s distance’ to IT and found ways to overcome barriers they felt were seemingly put in their way when it came to ‘bringing in’ the technology they deemed as essential.

Something needs to change going forward. Both the business manager and the IT need to find ways to exchange, collaborate and share. It is in their ‘vested’ interest but more importantly for the future health of the business itself.