Strategy-Driven Innovation(sm)

Knowing that the markets are very unforgiving and will always continue to be unfriendly, and that embracing innovation is not an option, the next logical question might be obvious. What must CEOs do to embrace innovation while managing the associated risk and overcoming the barriers?

First, answer lies in developing clear Innovation Mandate - a strategic statement that describes innovation in the context of your business, the value it promises to generate for growth and disciplined process by which to get there.

Innovation Mandate must be vividly clear for everyone in your organization; it must be concise to help drive alignment to business unit initiatives, and it must help articulate specific employee behaviors necessary at all levels for innovation climate to take root. When designed correctly, it is clearly linked and driven by the business strategy.

From our experience, keys to becoming innovative are highly dependent on your ability to address four critical barriers that are incumbent in most organizations. When not addressed together, the journey towards sustainability and value creation invites a higher risk of failure, potentially minimizing the results of innovation investments.

• The first barrier is that most organizations do not have the mindset to harvest ideas and manage those ideas.
• The second barrier is not recognizing and then not aligning the abundance of resources available to large organizations for investment in innovation.
• The third barrier is to recognize the sheer size of the human capital assets that are under-utilized and disengaged from an organization’s creative capacity. 
• The fourth and final barrier relates to the broad product and delivery capabilities that large-scale organizations possess.

Of course, this is not the exhaustive list, but the primary list of obstacles that must be managed and mitigated so you can develop a proper framework for innovation within your firm.

To learn more about my firm's commitment to innovation and our work, please visit http://www.desai.com and also look at information on our Strategy-Driven Innovation framework.