Sunday 16 November 2008

How do you know that your Innovation Strategy is the right one?

Many strategy knowledge centers like Insead, Havard Business School and McKinsey Global Institute are publishing many white papers on how to design (Innovation) Strategies. Yes, it is good stuff, but the key hurdle for a successful Innovation Strategy is the implementation of the design.
During implementation you will face the daily hurdles of Business Transformation. When the ambition level of Innovation is high (like Blue Oceans or New Business Models) implementation will be harder proportionally.

During implementation of an Innovation Strategy you also will experience the speed of changes in the assumptions you made in the design phase of the strategy. You need to go for a Strategic Scenario Thinking approach. This approach enables you to translate different trends and business drivers into you Innovation Strategy.
If significant changes occur you have already alternative scenarios in hand. Each scenario will indicate the need for adaption of your Innovation Portfolio as well.
Together with Daan Giessen, I build an approach to challenge your Innovation Strategy and the way you can adapt your Innovation Portfolio:

Sunday 2 November 2008

What impact will have the Financial Crisis on Business Innovation?

So far we have seen Innovation as a luxury in growing economy. What will happen if we are facing with severe down scaling of the real economy? Do the current innovations methodologies like Blue Ocean Strategy, Open Innovation, Co-Cration, Brand Building helps companies to Innovate without having money for investments available?

I think this will be the time to change significantly our vision on Business Innovation. The financial sector has created a virus of so called Phantom Innovation. These innovations are focus on one-sided and short term enrichment for a small group of Robbers (hedge fund owners, specific group of CXOs). Of course they played with the less smarter but not less greedy consumer and small private investors. The Phantom Innovation creates only Phantom Value.

The good thing about the crisis is that there is a global burning platform to change from Phantom Innovation to Sustainable Innovation. We need to develop global real value with accessibility for everyone.
We saw different people speaking up against the legal robbers in politics and the economy. People like Charles Leadbeater but also Noreena Hertz: "I realised that economics is not about models, graphs and curves, but about people, politics and society, about history and culture; that these are all legitimate things to be concerned about as an economist. In fact, you would be a much better economist if you did understand these things."

I believe we will face a new generation of global leaders showing us the way to more Sustainable Social Innovations. I see it already emerging in different companies and the flow is with them. The future history will refer to this last decennia as the NEO- middle-ages in politics and economy.