Innovation and more of it has become the mantra of top management. The ability to innovate and thereby sustainably create value for the business is becoming the defining competitive advantage for companies which want to thrive in a globalized economy. So obviously, driving innovation is a key job for top management, the CEO and the C-Suite. But what about the Board? What role should it play in the innovation game – if any?
The optimal balancing of radical and incremental innovation is becoming a Key Success Factor in many industries. Organizational ambidexterity is the approach to achieve this. With a best-in-class ambidextrous set-up, firms can become innovation leader.
This is the second of two articles, co-written by Ralph-Christian Ohr and Kevin McFarthing. In our previous post, we discussed how Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) ensures that the content of the portfolio is driven by innovation strategy and associated targets. We would now like to move on to Operational Portfolio Management (OPM), where the portfolio directs resource allocation, metrics and reporting on an operational and tactical level. The link between the two is shown in Figure 1 below.
Facing increasingly dynamic and unpredictable environments, firms are required to develop convenient innovation strategies, constantly adapt them to changing conditions and properly implement strategically aligned initiatives throughout their organizations. Innovation portfolio management (IPM) can act as the pivotal tool to translate strategic objectives and priorities into project-based innovation activities. Furthermore, it provides a framework to convert raw ideas into real investment opportunities, based on their risk profile.
In the first part of a 3-part article series innovation-3’s Frank Mattes and Integrative Innovation’s Ralph-Christian Ohr worked out why successful firms need to balance radical and incremental innovation. They introduced the concept of organizational ambidexterity as an appropriate way for simultaneously conducting exploration and exploitation, the two paradigms behind radical and incremental innovation.This second part shows some best practice examples of how the most innovative firms are setting up organizational ambidexterity.
Organizational ambidexterity is becoming a Key Factor for Success in many industries. With a proper ambidextrous set-up, firms can optimally balance radical and incremental innovation.This is part 1 of a 3-part article co-written by innovation-3’s Frank Mattes and Ralph-Christian Ohr from Integrative Innovation. In this article we are showing the need for organizational ambidexterity, introduce the concept, show how it can be implemented and provide two case studies from leading German firms
