Ambition Matrix: What It Is and How To Use It
Creating an innovation strategy means improving what you currently offer and finding ways to differentiate from your competition in the future. This is easy in principle, but applying this practice to your business can be very difficult.
How the Pandemic Created the Virtual Innovation Lab
COVID reshaped every department—including your innovation department. Find out how some organizations adapted to the remote work age by creating the virtual innovation lab, and how you can create your own by downloading this complimentary infographic.
Is Communication Sabotaging Your Ability to Innovate?
Avoid these four communications landmines as you navigate the stages of innovation.
Reflections on the Evolving Role of Innovation Professionals, Based on a Recent Panel Session
I recently participated in a panel session as part of a great conference organised by the Innov8rs group (thanks Hans!), with an amazing set of innovation leaders, including Gina O’Connor, John Metselaar, and Andrea Kates.
3 Ways Real-Time Financial Data Drives Business Intelligence
Finance is no stranger to using data in predictive analysis, forecasting, and more, but what can real-time data bring to the table?
Innovator Dilemma vs. Innovator Phenomena: The Theory of the Firm’s Phenomena
Established firms’ strategies remain characterized by the inability to master---some will say even comprehend---the economics of choosing. It is particularly surfacing unresolved relationships between [1] technical-technological, [2] economic and [3] social combinations taking place within established firms e.g. manufactured product.
Is Data Hindering Your Innovation Efforts? Five Data Missteps That Paralyze Innovation
Data can be a powerful enabler for innovation, but when used incorrectly, it can be a paralyzing force. It's a critical component in measuring and understanding the need for innovation—if you cannot measure something, you cannot improve it. Whether you collect data based on historical perspectives or through experiments, it can bring the insights needed for truly great innovations.
The Biggest Adaptations We Need to Make to Accommodate Climate Change
In 2020, for the first time ever, solar and wind made up the majority of the world’s new power generation. In 2021, the US alone committed to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030. And as of Earth Day this year, more than 30% of the Fortune 500 have made commitments to a carbon-free future.
Whitepaper: Stimulating and Measuring Open and Cross Innovation
As two intermediaries from Hamburg that foster open and cross innovation processes, Science Scout (an initiative of Hamburg Innovation) and Cross Innovation Hub (Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft) joined forces to start a discussion around the stimulation and measurement of open and cross innovation processes.
Why People Buy Innovation Management Software
Every year, IdeaScale analyzes our system and customer data and releases a report on crowdsourced innovation trends and benchmarks. You can find this year’s report here, but one of the questions that we pay a lot of attention to is why people are looking to purchase an innovation management platform in the first place.
DNA of an Innovative Business: Is It Yours?
With the acceleration of modern economic, societal and environmental changes, new opportunities are created everywhere, and often where we least expect them.
Breaking the Innovation Stereotypes: The Case of Curry Express
We often hear about the concept of innovation and its importance in enhancing the competitiveness of an organization---however, the excessive use of this term has distorted its true meaning and content.
5 Ways to Overcome the $1 Million Paradox
To understand the difference between how new ideas are treated in startups and in big companies, you need to understand the $1 million paradox.
Innovation in Focus: Private Equity and Institutional Actors
Private equity funds invest in many traditional companies. So do institutional actors. When asked, leading voices in this field often claim that they are not looking for the next big thing, but dominant companies in the field, with low risk and a relatively predictable and stable cash flow.
What Do Innovation Maturity Assessments Have in Common?
Building a repeatable model for innovation is a journey, not a trophy. An innovation department builds services and competencies across multiple disciplines – from research to communications and culture. And even with a dedicated innovation department, they must cooperate seamlessly with other parts of the business in order to deliver meaningful results on an ongoing basis.
Digital Tools and the Future of Remote Work
Until recently, remote work was somewhat of a rarity, and, at very least, something most people were unfamiliar with. One of the few COVID-19 silver linings, however, was that many companies were forced to have their employees work remotely due to stay-at-home orders. This meant more time with families, less time in transit, and, for a lot, a surprising sense of comfort at "the workplace."
How the Next Wave of Innovators Can Rebuild the Economy After a Crisis
Innovation takes many forms, and it will likely come from unexpected places in the next normal. Here are 3 ways business leaders can drive innovation regardless of what happens in the world.
Knowledge Management in the Era of the COVID-19 Crisis
Executives should look at three-step processes of knowledge accumulation, integration, and reconfiguration. This model for managing knowledge reflects a more strategic and practical perspective, as it is process-oriented and most applicable for leading organizations.
Peace through Entrepreneurship: How Businesses Can Be a Force for Unity
Cyprus is politically divided, movement is restricted, and there are two different authorities and sets of laws. How can innovation and entrepreneurship thrive in such a polarized environment - and alternatively, how does that polarization drive innovation?
Four lessons from M-Pesa on Innovation Adoption
M-Pesa, a mobile-based financial service, did not follow a linear, step-by-step innovation process. In this article, Eivor Oborn follows M-Pesa's rapid trajectory to unearth how people who used it in Kenya, and how that helped the company adapt its product development.
Why Digitalization Doesn’t Change the Way Companies Innovate
Will digitalization fundamentally change the way companies innovate? Our answer is no. While digital technologies hold enormous innovation potential, they belong to the sphere of “solutions” and are means to a higher purpose.
Five Principles of Innovation Measurement
What gets measured gets managed. Innovation is not serendipity; it’s a managed process of transforming novel ideas to achieve their business value. You can only manage what you measure.
Five Perspectives of Innovation Management Maturity
The success of innovation management is never an accident; it’s a holistic management process with an iterative thought-out planning and execution continuum.
Spotless: An Innovation Roadmap
Bridie Scott is an Innovation Manager at Spotless and she’s taken the business on a journey from a large-scale company with big goals to a company that is listening to and empowering all of their frontline employees in the innovation process.
The 3 C’s: Complex Problem Solving, Creativity and Critical Thinking – Core Soft Skills Required in the Workplace of the 4th Industrial Revolution
The next in our series on the 4th Industrial Revolution, from the Business Optimization Training Institute (BOTI). Start with Part I here.
How Can You Use Gamification to Boost Innovation?
A serious game based on innovation methodologies can be an extremely useful tool at different phrases of implementing innovation in a company. Let's take a look at how to implement gamification into your innovation strategy.
Can Web Scraping Help Your Business?
Web scraping, sometimes also called data scraping or just plain scraping, is the technological art of mining other company's information in order to collect data. Business owners can also use it to gather information from social media sites and online publications.
How Companies Can Pursue a More Circular Economy
There are studies that say the world will run out of oil within 55 years. All the while, aquatic creatures are suffering at the hands of plastic pollution every day. On top of that, our collective contribution to the greenhouse effect is sending us underwater as sea levels rise at unprecedented rates.