Innovation Evolution – the Path to Sustainable Innovation

  

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

In working with manufacturers across the globe to help them establish repeatable, integrated innovation processes, we have observed that those organizations that succeed in establishing an innovation competency reap huge benefits from being able to:

• confidently dedicate resources on the right opportunities
• efficiently generate ideas utilizing technical content from both within and outside the enterprise, and
• effectively capture and leverage tribal knowledge and lessons learned

Using a combination of software tools and proven innovation methodologies, these innovation leaders have implemented a higher standard of integrated product development and quality management – driven by structured ideation and problem-solving best practices and supported by state-of-the-art, just-in-time, precision knowledge retrieval and a powerful framework for collaboration.

This powerful combination of software, process and content has allowed these companies to:

• more effectively conceive and design new products
• improve and extend existing products
• effectively navigate the competitive market and intellectual property landscapes
• find new markets for their core technologies and build strong barriers around their valuable assets while also finding ways to tear down competitive barriers

Across every industry vertical, we have seen a distinct evolutionary path as organizations consider how to improve their ability to grapple with the demands of increasingly more complex and more competitive environments and the ever-present mandate to drive top-line growth through innovation.

Companies begin down this path starting with ‘Accidental Innovation’ where successful innovation is happenstance. They then move through different stages of innovation process experimentation - first on a situational basis and then on an opportunistic basis, and, finally, culminating in the establishment of a high-performance, sustainable innovation culture.

We’ll explore each of the different stages of innovation process experimentation in upcoming posts. In the interim, we’d like to hear from you.  Is your organization an accidental innovator? Situational? Opportunistic?