By Randal Moss and David J. Neff, co-Authors of IGNITE
In the effort to drive innovation, a number of companies have taken aim at the challenge with tactics that involve ‘placing innovation at the center of everything that we do!’ Literally – a very prominent and well respected CEO of a Fortune 25 company says, in his book, that his role is “focused on integrating innovation into everything we do.”(1) But if you put something inherently disruptive in the center of your value generating business, what do you think is the likely outcome?
Disrupt The Category, Not Your Business
Part of the challenge of being an innovation leader within an existing company or organization is how you go about disrupting an entire business model without disrupting your own business. Asking current business owners and staff to focus on running their existing work while simultaneously being an innovation engine is unrealistic, and potentially detrimental to the stability and profitability of the core business.
While organizations strive to put innovation at the center of their work, it makes more sense to place innovation efforts in their own area where they are shielded from organizational politics, traditional KPI evaluation metrics, and allowed to grow and create value independently. When your innovation factory is not beholden to your traditional architecture and process, it will deliver the most transformative opportunities.
Left Hand Meet Right Hand
Developing and fostering innovation in isolation brings about a whole other set of challenges (like creating a category killer that kills your most profitable category). There is a lot to be said about the kinds of connectivity you have to build between existing business units and an innovation factory in order to maximize value.
1. Future Ownership – Innovation engines that use our IGNITE Framework are meant to identify, research, test, and prove that innovative concepts are viable potential lines of business. Innovation centers are not management centers. Therefore being in contact with existing departments as projects move through the stages is a great way to ensure a smooth hand off.
2. Strategic Alignment – Innovation engines should be independent but within reason. If an idea making its way through the development framework is financially dependent on using specific piece of capital equipment, and that equipment is being decommissioned, that innovation team needs to know. This is a great opportunity to either reevaluate the innovation plan or make a business case for delaying the decommissioning of the asset.
3. Product Road-Mapping – Great ideas do not happen to only one person. Sometimes the same people see the same opportunities and through connectivity you can prevent duplicative work. In some cases you may find that the business unit prefers the Innovation Center to take on research and validation based on development speed, track record, and bandwidth.
4. Dodge Your Own Arrows – As we mentioned above, there is always the risk that your own innovations may impact your current businesses. At least with connectivity you can take control of the future outcome and plan to maximize the legacy business as you grow the new one. Kudos to you for creating the newest widget that solves the problem and will make us millions – and just made three of our one billion dollar businesses obsolete.
Creating a tangent Innovation Center of excellence is a great way to minimize disruptions to your current business, shield fledgling business concepts, and build only the necessary and purposeful bridges to get ideas turned into market ready innovations. Using your people and financial resources in this selective and focused model has paid out dividends in many of case studies that we cover in our new book IGNITE: Setting Your Organization’s Culture on Fire With Innovation.
Footnote 1: The Game Changer by A.G. Laffley and Ram Charan – http://www.ram-charan.com/wp-
Randal Moss and David J. Neff are co-Authors of IGNITE Setting Your Organization’s Culture on Fire With Innovation. It is a field guide on how to start up an innovation center within your organization.
David J. Neff helps people for a living. As an award winning author, speaker, teacher and consultant he has been driving innovation and digital strategy work with Fortune 500 clients and nonprofits for over 16 years—with clients such as Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Pepsi, United Airlines, Beam Suntory, Tesco, Best Friends Animal Society, Jack in the Box and the CDC. He has spoken at such diverse places such as SXSW (7x), The American Marketing Association, Nonprofit Technology Conference, Abila’s Software Developer Conference, PBS’s National CEO Conference and TEDx.
Randal C. Moss is an award winning marketer who focuses on engaging organizations and applying technology to drive growth. He has over 12 years of experience including institutionalizing innovation development frameworks, and creating consumer engagement solutions for companies and clients across the CPG, Real Estate, and nonprofit sectors. Randal has spoken at conferences such as SXSW (3X), State of Play, National Human Services Assembly National Meeting, Disney Institute’s Digital Now, and the American Marketing Association Hot Topic Tour.
Neff and Moss’ first book is The Future of Nonprofits: Innovate and Thrive in the Digital Age (Wiley). Their newest book, IGNITE (August 2016) is available for purchase at most fine book stores, www.TheIgniteBook.com, as well as Amazon and other online booksellers.
