Moving Towards Globally Integrated Innovation

There are so many books out there on innovation that it sometimes gets just hard to decide which to buy and read, to invest time into. I’ve got a growing stack of books sitting on my coffee table or in my e-reader file all shouting “read me, read me!”

Managing Global InnovationWell one I recently finished has been one of those rare books that got the Paul Hobcraft treatment; considerable underlining, scribbles in the margins, circles around some pages that I want to refer back too as quickly as I can. You can never achieve that same sense of ‘ownership’ and possession through the e-reader can you, or am I missing something there?

So the book that joined that elite pantheon to the innovation gods on my top shelf was one written by Yves Doz and Keeley Wilson entitled “Managing Global Innovation – frameworks for integrating capabilities around the World”, printed by Harvard Business Review Press. I really recommend it.

The Key to bridging your Global Innovation Gap

The book is all about providing the understanding of integrating your global resources to build and leverage a global innovation network. I think it does a good job in explaining the different parts, the considerations and the tougher aspects of making this work for you.

Ok, I’m a sucker when it starts off by discussing the innovation challenges, then starts climbing into chapters on optimizing the innovation footprint, then communications, receptivity and then how to organize for global projects focusing on collaborative and integrated innovation, it does draw you in.

I’ll leave you to explore this in your own time, if global innovation and integrating is your bag. Equally I think it will be more than helpful in thinking this fully through or recognizing gaps within your present operations.

What the book does for me

Why it is one of those books for me is where it keeps coming back and placing the focus, on knowledge attainment, seeking out receptivity, transferring and integrating complex and codified knowledge. This emphasis fits so much with my own passion and constantly pushing “Absorptive Capacity” that it felt like coming home, that reaffirming feeling. The difference was the book took you through a different level of journey and understanding to add a whole lot more in my own thinking around this area.

Collaborative diffusion, building distributed innovation ecosystems, compatible strategic ambitions, cultural compatibility and discussing the interdependencies all challenge your thinking. As the authors nicely sum up in Chapter 7 it is how the behaviour of decision makers needs to move from that in-built notion of “being successful by competing” on their individual level and changing their mindset for more collaborative innovation across this diverse and global network.

The authors suggest this new way of managing is a difficult one to adopt and sustain but suggest the best way, perhaps the only way, is through constant practice and having a positive reinforcement of what makes for successful collaborations. I’d also add that ability to experiment, to learn from others around you constantly and recognizing ‘winning and being successful’ is not reliant on just yourself, it is leveraging everything that is all around you that builds your experience and knowledge.

Globally Integrated Innovation

Connected WorldWe live in a world of huge diversity and dispersion of knowledge. There is a growth and constant push into new markets, emerging new competitors that are increasingly challenging us to find solutions to this management of global networks, both inside and outside our organizations in more integrative approaches to capture the ‘best’ of innovation.

Today’s present structures of the innovation organization, the systems required, the processes, the diversity of cultures, different mindsets and the focus on extracting the best from this mix of structure and resources is hard and complex.

The authors argue the scope and scale of the tasks should not become an impediment to action and suggest three dimensions of change to help in this. I’ll leave you to search for these.

They warn there is one huge caveat to achievement.

Senior management’s vision, their commitment and attention to this will not achieve this globally integrated network alone.  It is the recognition that failure to implement strategic change is often this lack of buy-in from groups of middle managers who remain happy with the status-quo or unaware of the need and rationale for the required change.

These gaps within organizations are due to the lack of dialogue, openly discussing threats and challenges and being inclusive in the implementation. This took me back, again, to my own arguments and suggested solutions to bridge that gap, through the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

“Knowledge is increasingly dispersed”

We return to knowledge in the wrap up within the book, where the authors have identified five radical shifts taking place that will lead to greater knowledge diffusion and diversity: 1) globalization and the opening of new markets; 2) increasing technological complexity and convergence; 3) demographic changes; 4) greater external pressures, in particular environmental concerns (and scarcity); 5) offshore outposts and outsourcing.

Knowing what makes up the complexities of global innovation and managing and harnessing this in dispersed networks is a real challenge and there is no better place to start than in picking up a copy of this book and working through it thoughtfully and thoroughly, to “organize, build and manage a global innovation capability from design to execution”

My final thought – beyond the previous boundaries of innovation

With innovation increasingly moving beyond its previous boundaries of simply leaving it to the scientists or marketing departments has long gone, for today and in the future, innovation is about open, inclusive, exploration and harmonization to extract the best.

Innovation has moved beyond products into new services, changing value propositions and business models and needs this constant reorganization around changing the innovation activities. Technology- based alone is not enough pursuing greater functionality; we are increasingly in the disruptive era of simplification, which captures far more of the imagination and where the increased movement of wealth generating opportunities lie.

Look at the effects of reverse innovation, jugaad or frugal innovation and where this has potential, the strong underlying movement in start-ups that are far more ‘needs related’ or serving ‘unmet needs’ through lean approaches than those in the past, of simply cruising along for opportunity with a vague business concept.

Everything has become so much sharper in why we have to focus our minds down, it is far more on what and where innovation can give us the next growth opportunity and that comes from all the diversity we can muster. Managing in the global innovation space is no different, it needs a dedicated focus and understanding, to find the unique mix that suits your needs and knowledge accessing and translating becomes the global unlocking key.

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