There are plenty of examples of innovation program failure at large organizations. In this article, I examine the key markers that I have observed, that indicate a program may be in trouble and at risk of failure.
While most companies focus their innovation efforts on new products, others like Amazon and Netflix are disrupting industries with business model innovation --a cheaper, easier and more powerful form of innovation. InnovationManagement.se spoke about business model innovation with professors Netessine and Girotra, authors of the new book “The risk-driven business model”
When you ask Executives what they want beyond short profit and revenue growth they’ll likely say ‘more innovation’. Why? Because they face unprecedented business challenges. Let’s look back. The current modern corporation was invented about 100 years ago – at the start of the 20th century. That’s when the big companies were born like the US railroad companies, US Steel, the big banks, IG Farben. Some exist still today (GE).
Mitigating the high failure rate associated with entrepreneurial endeavour is something that concerns investors as well as potential entrepreneurs - “do I risk myself?” is a lurking question many ask of themselves or the person putting money on the table.
Is your workplace cluttered? Not in the physical sense, but the figurative one. Do you have a bunch of old tasks and procedures taking up space without adding much value? Just like you have to dig through your closet every so often and get rid of questionable items that you once thought were good purchases, sometimes you have to assess the mental clutter that has built up in the workplace over time and recognize when policies have gone out of style. Tasks and rules that were once must-haves can build exponentially and increase complexity until employees have time for little else, like innovation.
Many organizations in both the public and private sectors suffer from a corporate culture which is risk averse and fearful of failure. People are reluctant to try new things or even to suggest innovations. They remember old stories about colleagues being punished for experiments that failed. They have learnt that it is safest to keep a low profile and focus on standard operating procedures. Mean while the executive committee is desperately trying to think of ways to make the outfit more agile and innovative.
Most “new” business models are not really “new”. Very frequently they are based on replications or re-combinations of existing business model patterns. Consequently, learning from business models from other companies and industries is a very important source of inspiration for business model innovation.
In the first installment, Gordon the newly appointed CEO at Pharmax is confronted with an innovation gap of 5 years. Certainly, the potential of the portfolio is high, but the risks are even higher. With market pressure breathing down his neck, Gordon tries to make sense of the options that he has and make the right decisions.
We are living in an increasingly litigious age. The number of lawsuits brought against the British National Health Service has doubled in the last four years. The fear of litigation and the real possibility of been found guilty of medical malpractice are inhibiting hospitals and doctors from trying promising new ideas in the treatment of deadly illnesses.
We are on the executive floor of the imaginary pharmaceutical company PharmaX, it is Q3 and the top management is preparing for the annual innovation review. The year has been tough with revenue being hit by generic competition as their major products come off patent, but then it has been difficult for all the industry. This is the first article in a series of three. Parts 2 & 3 will be published in the next 2 weeks.
Though companies invest into innovation they like results less and less. There seems to be a glass ceiling for driving innovation, which neither new tools and processes nor innovation consultants seem to crack. It is time to face the elephant in the room: company culture and its impact on innovation performance. Top management needs to learn deal with it. Then company culture will become a driver of innovation rather than getting in the way.
Summer is for relaxing, but also for reading books in more depth. During his vacation Bengt Järrehult read Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow for the second time and more thoroughly. Here are Bengt’s thoughts on how Prospect Theory applies to innovation related decisions - the decisions that may seem stupid and irrational – but are they really?
From incremental to breakthrough innovation projects, managers need to handle different activities and with them dissimilar venues of risks. In this article the internal, external and hidden risks of incremental, differential, radical, and breakthrough innovation projects are identified and ranked accordingly. In addition, for every category a general innovation eco-system has been analyzed.
Innovation is always a result of taking risk and mastering these risks successfully. However, in the past few years the risks resulting from the overall economic situation seems to have increased for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). As they cannot control these external risks many of them seem to stay away from too risky innovation projects. This has implications for the SMEs and for those who provide innovation support for SMEs?
As the economy is dynamically changing and innovation becomes crucially important, a look into the management practices and risks that such projects face should always be welcome. In part two of this series of articles focused on identifying risks on innovation projects, the attention will be directed towards the identification of the internal and hidden risks of innovation projects.
