Leap Innovation: a Strategy to Get Ahead and Stay Relevant

The importance of innovation for organizations to remain competitive is widely discussed and well accepted by scholars and practicing managers. However, failures in innovation attempts are quite common and raise many questions. Why do firms with innovative products fail? Does market acceptance of innovations alone guarantee continuous success? Is it innovation strategy that can ensure long-term prosperity? One can argue that it is not only how to innovate that matters, but also where, what and when to innovate that make the difference.

High Stakes Industrial Innovation with Paul Brody

Paul Brody is a Global Innovation Leader in BlockChain Technology and a Solution Leader in the Industrial Internet of Things at EY. Paul has spent more than 15 years in the electronics industry and has done extensive research for his clients on technology strategy. Paul understands that technology is deeply rooted in strategy, but it gets complex as new technologies and disruptions arise in our modern world. For example, the moment self-driving cars are perfected, it will cause a huge disruption in our economy, so how can we navigate through it?

The Science of Innovation with Amantha Imber

Amantha Imber is the Founder of Inventium, a company that uses science-based innovation to help organizations unlock their growth. Amantha has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry such as Coca-Cola and Disney, and is the author of The Creativity Formula: 50 Scientifically-proven Creativity Boosters for Work and for Life. On this episode, Amantha discusses how to encourage a risk-taking company culture that isn’t afraid to fail in the name of innovation, as well as what she personally looks for in a new hire.

Avoid Innovation Paralysis – Why all Companies Can and Must Embrace Change

Someone once told me this: “Innovation is like an apparition of the Virgin Mary: one person saw her, but everyone talks about it.” Although funny, the quote aptly captures an attitude towards innovation that exists in many companies today. Innovation – and the skills that enable it – are sometimes considered as mystical gifts, preserved for the chosen few. In other cases, innovation is feared, because it involves unregulated processes, risk taking and investments with unpredictable outcomes. In this blog post, I’d like to make a case against this kind of innovation paralysis. Every company must innovate, and with the right understanding of the word ‘innovation’, every company can.

Why Innovation Fails (And How to Succeed)

Here’s a wild guess: the majority of large enterprises will probably claim they know exactly what innovation is all about. Yet, in spite of impressive resources, big companies are responsible for only a small fraction of disruptive innovations. What is at the root of this paradox? Why does so much innovation fail? And more importantly: what can companies do about it?

How to Turn a Failure into a Wild Success

After six months of hard work, we were sitting together on a warm spring afternoon enjoying a beer in one of Melbourne’s new hipster bars. We had learned a lot, traveled all over Australia and met amazingly passionate people. We’d put together a lean startup with a focus to test a simple business idea and we’d heard countless times how much our tools were needed. There was only one problem. We had failed.

2019-10-15T15:22:12-07:00March 21st, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: , , , , , , |

Clear the Mystery Around Innovation Crowdsourcing: Learn from the Pros

So you’re thinking of tapping your employees or customers for ideas. You’ve read some exciting crowdsourcing case studies and it seems like a no brainer. Or you’ve used a consultant but now want to go it alone? What could possibly go wrong? If you’re like a lot of first timers, you’ll get the software all set up, announce the challenge, and sit back with great expectations!

10 Ways to Reduce the Innovation Failure Rate

You are not able to stand still in this fast paced business environment, but most of the time innovation fails. Innovation process-expert Robert Cooper shows that of every seven new product/service projects, about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Innovation is so difficult to master, indeed. I love to share with you five reasons why innovation goes wrong and give you ten ways to reduce your failure rate of innovation.

The True Value of Your Ideas

The mantra of ideas being worthless can be heard from all corners of the globe. Venture capitalists back founders and not ideas. In 2009, the entrepreneur and author Seth Godin got the nine of his alternate MBA students to come up with 111 ideas each to create 999 business concepts (Godin 2009). The point? To prove that “Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution.” But is this correct? Your gut feeling demands that your best insights are worth more than nothing, right? Right.

2021-12-07T15:33:46-08:00December 3rd, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: , , , , , , , |

5 Management Mistakes You Don’t Realize You’re Making

The dictionary defines management as, “the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.” Sometimes, managers don’t understand why their team does not function cohesively. Below are five management mistakes managers don’t realize they’re making and tips to avoid these missteps.

Don’t Be Afraid of Upsetting People – A Negative Reaction is Better than no Reaction

South Park is a highly successful cartoon sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central TV network. The show was launched in 1997 and quickly became notorious for its rude language, minimalist characters and black, surreal satire. It was aimed at an adult audience and poked fun at a wide range of topical or taboo subjects. South Park has received many accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards. It is the third longest-running cartoon series in the U.S. behind The Simpsons and Arthur. Yet it was very nearly cancelled when initial tests showed that most people did not like it.

2019-10-15T15:20:57-07:00August 11th, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: , , , , |

5 Steps to Embed Innovation in Your Daily Working Life

Innovation is a word that’s been heard on the lips of more CEOs, read in more broadsheet papers, and detailed in more business magazines in the last ten months than ever before. It’s well regarded that those businesses that fail to innovate risk death; consider the sad fates of longstanding companies like Woolworths, Polaroid, Blockbuster, and Borders over the last ten years. But how, as an individual, can you incorporate innovation and creative thinking into your everyday working life, all while keeping up with the already manic pace of modern business?

Innovation Incubators and Accelerators: What Happens When They Go Wrong?

I recently wrote an article that outlined a new approach to developing and supporting successful innovation incubators and accelerators within corporate organizations. The article appeared to have touched a nerve as I had a number of people reach out to me to offer their experiences with incubators/accelerators. While I received a range of opinions, I was actually most interested in the stories of failure.

10 Guidelines for Business Model Innovation in Established Companies

Leading CEOs worldwide expect major changes to their company’s business model until 2020. As a consequence, organizations are currently about to realize that, today, business model innovation has become as important as technological innovation. However, developing new and viable business models still represents a serious challenge for large incumbent firms despite their resources, know-how, and key technologies. This article provides 10 guidelines for mastering business model innovation challenges in established companies.

The Boom – Not Doom – from Market Failure

What do non-consumption, organizational friction and market failure have in common? These days, everyone is “innovating” to find the next big thing. But where do you start? One way is to try and think of innovation as having mass, and therefore it cannot be created from truly nothing. Innovation must start somewhere, and it must start with something that already exists.