developing "Talented Organisations" and building "Innovation Capability"

Innovation capability

"The only source of profit, the only reason to invest in companies in the future is their ability to innovate and their ability to differentiate."

Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE

How is your organisation coping in a hyper-competitive world where customers demand better more personalised products and services? Is your innovation creating value and delivering sustainable competitive advantage?

Innovation framework

Innovation is not just about new products or services. There are many more opportunities throughout the organisation to introduce new ideas and new approaches. Most organisations, however, say they are not successful at innovation. They find it difficult to put an innovation strategy into practice. Internal processes and culture present a major barrier to innovation. Often, innovation is focused only on product development with no thought given to other areas where innovation could provide competitive advantage. Furthermore, innovation can be too inward looking so that it fails to produce something that is valued by customers. However, by formulating the right innovation strategy and by aligning the people in the organisation to implement it, these issues can be successfully addressed.
Our work with organisations that are looking to become more innovative, begins with three thought provoking questions:

  • Have you looked broadly enough to seek out new opportunities to differentiate yourself and create new sustainable competitive advantage?
  • Do you have a robust innovation process in place that will drive and manage the progress from “Insights” right through to new and profitable products and services?
  • Do you have a culture in your organisation that supports innovation?

Answers to these questions establish the current level of innovation performance and highlight those areas for development or opportunities for growth. Key outcomes include:

  • A competitive analysis that looks at the factors in products and services that customers value and the investments that you and your competitors make in those factors. This may form the basis of new commercial models for parts of your business
  • A process review that considers the effectiveness of current procedures in turning insights into viable new products and services and makes recommendations for improving the process.
  • A training and development programme for nurturing an innovative culture within the organisation

Our framework for development is designed to enhance capability in four key areas:

Direction - Have you a clear direction that places you ahead of your peers or are you struggling in the complexity of competition?

Management - Are you optimising your investment in innovation while minimising risk?

Collaboration - Are you building value adding relationships with customers, suppliers and staff?

Creativity - are you training your people to develop and promote new ideas? Do you have a culture that supports innovation?

If you are struggling in one or more of these areas or you would simly like to discuss our approach in more detail then call us and ask to speak to John Wild or Alan Bogle. You may wish to look at a copy of our free Innovation Toolkit.