Building Innovation Capability | Innovating in the Age of Ecosystems

Thinking over dynamic capabilities for innovation success

The innovation fitness dynamics for innovating capabilities

As someone who runs a small, independent consulting and research business that is 100% focused on innovation, the focus has to be on capabilities so I am always grateful for the continued involvement of the bigger consulting companies in producing sound, relevant and topical research issues on innovation and the building out greater, well-researched understanding.

Large consulting organizations ‘stoke the innovation fire within’, they confirm what you felt you knew but needed it to be validated. These great sources include McKinsey, Bain & Co, Booz & Co, Monitor, BCG, ADL and to a lesser degree Accenture for innovation research.

There are others but the ability to have access to C-Level thinking is this groups real strength and so they come more immediate to mind.

The emphasis is on distinct capabilities for innovation success.
Continue reading “Thinking over dynamic capabilities for innovation success”

Shifting to the 21st Century Business models

Gary Hamel is amazing, he is constantly thinking about the future and lays out how to get there; he has been doing this repeatedly for years, this time it is discussing the innovation drags we presently have and how they are holding back the 21st Century business models.

One quote of his seems to hit home for me especially “The real brake on innovation is the drag of old mental models. Long-serving executives often have a big chunk of their emotional capital invested in the existing strategy”

A real big challenge is changing old mindsets but how?

Today, the value of Business model innovation seems to be a critical part of breaking out of the old and finding new avenues to growth and prosperity.

The trouble today is the existing mindset of the manager is often the major block to challenging the existing business model and working towards a real change.

This lack of realisation is increasingly allowing the young usurper, the entrepreneur, into seizing the opportunities and seizes the initiatives of the very growth needed by existing businesses. Continue reading “Shifting to the 21st Century Business models”

Simplicity drives Adoption often in Innovation

Keeping it simple can often drive adoption. This week I had the pleasure of attending a Brightidea (https://www.brightidea.com/) “Birds of a Feather” event in Zurich. A pleasure clearly, why? Simply because it turned out differently than I had expected. Let me explain.

I have a tendency to be wary of claims or statements like “global leaders in innovation management” and “driven more success than any other innovation management solution provider” as it is hard to validate that from simply what I can read on Brightidea’s website, or through verification of independent research.

What can be said as a growing validation though is that they are clearly being increasingly recognised by many global customers as an important platform contributor to their collaborative innovation process. Continue reading “Simplicity drives Adoption often in Innovation”

The systematic understanding of Business Model Innovation design

Business model innovation is shaping up to be one of the most challenging aspects of leadership of existing businesses and aspiring leaders do need to fully understand how to map out the business value.

The question today being faced by many is how to transform existing business models so as to avoid that race to commoditization and decreasing shareholder value and so to provide improved value.

Equally business model innovation increasingly needs to be able to reduce the threat of new competition that is constantly finding ways to undermine your present business. The Entrepreneur is snapping at your heels like never before.

Leaders need the tools, skills and experience to envision, test and implement new business models more than ever and certainly faster than ever.

The worrying aspect today it seems is that many leaders are still not knowing what it is within their existing business model that ‘combines’ to make the existing profit engine of the business, those ‘value points’ that really provide the innovation opportunity to sustain or challenge their existing business models.

So what is Business Model Innovation? Continue reading “The systematic understanding of Business Model Innovation design”

The Pathway Curve of Innovation Understanding

The pathway curve methodology is a well structured way to move up in innovation understanding.

One of my recent articles outlined a three horizon framework for innovation, let me extend this a little further into a pathway of innovation understanding.

I’m sure we all agree Innovation needs to be worked, it needs to be understood and often many people do get confused by not taking a more measured approach to the need to break innovation down into its manageable parts.

Innovation does not just have a time axis that the three horizons framework refers to but it has a complexity and scope axis in learning as well.

By taking a more systematic approach to any innovation you achieve a greater understanding over time of what is involved. Continue reading “The Pathway Curve of Innovation Understanding”

Drawing fresh innovating oxygen into the body

This must be the time of year for all those innovation reports to resurface for fresh innovation thinking. Recently I went back to the OECD report (opener here. http://bit.ly/buIiv8) and began to breathe in more innovating air.

Not bad from the OECD but that is one of their purposes in life I suppose. Why? A number of points stand out and using OECD summary headings, these were:

Policies need to reflect innovation as it occurs today.
We all do get stuck in repeating old ways yet the world and how it explores, experiments and investigates is constantly changing. It has become highly interactive and a multidisciplinary process with so much more need for collaboration across a diverse network of stakeholders.

Although it is getting more complex focusing on performance through innovation is very much a today thing.

People should be empowered to innovate Continue reading “Drawing fresh innovating oxygen into the body”

The National Innovation Institute argument

Further to my last blog post on the need for a National Innovation Institute, I’d like to expand on this further as I’m presently here in Singapore and feel this is even more topical.

Always Singapore provides you with a positive impression when it comes to development. It is a country that consistently experiments and explores its options to grow its economy. Innovation is within this mix but I still think it should be more central, visible and coordinated to extract that little ‘extra juice’ often needed today.

Visiting Singapore on this trip I’ve been examining where innovation ‘fits’, and there are plenty of examples of experimentation backed up by investment seed money, but for me, innovation still lacks a certain coherency and consistency of purpose within policy.

I feel with the changing nature of innovation and its increasing value creation aspect it does need to be given a greater sense of attention, so further investments can build innovation deeper into the fabric of society.

A national innovation body can bring this coherency of purpose that Singapore strives for. Continue reading “The National Innovation Institute argument”

The Amplified Individual for Innovation

Amplified Individuals for Innovation have four important characteristics.

I have been reading a fascinating report compiled for Nesta (www.nesta.org.uk) entitled “Amplified Leicester- Impact on social capital and cohesion”, written by Thilo Boeck and Sue Thomas of De Montford University (www.dmu.ac.uk)

As we all struggle with the increasing needs and complexity of innovation capacity it is the power of combining a greater diversity that holds real promise in the future

In this report, it explores at the intersection of difference, amplification and transliteracy the achievements of a city-wide experiment in Leicester to grow the innovation capacity across the city’s disparate and diverse communities and to share new skills which are fast becoming essential in 21st-century workplaces and communities.

It looks at social capital and uses emerging social media and provides a framework that allows for a diverse group to move towards cohesion and amplification. Continue reading “The Amplified Individual for Innovation”