Innovation Strategy Development

WE THINK THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF DEVELOPING AND DEPLOYING STRATEGY IS FLAWED. HERE'S WHY...

Firstly, there are way too many moving parts in today’s business environment to hope that a small group of highly specialized people can fully comprehend the cause-and-effect and contributing factors at play across the business environment.

Secondly, the weaknesses of traditional strategic planning – characterized by a lockstep march toward a series of deliverables according to a linear and rigid annual calendar – have been amplified by the importance of adaptability in a rapidly changing world.

THREE CORE STEPS:

STEP 1

Alignment of your senior team around where to go next, what to explore and a bold vision for the future.

STEP 2

Cross-organizational development of an innovation thesis that outlines your company’s strategic options as a series of assumptions to be tested rather than activities to be checked off.

STEP 3

Deployment of the innovation thesis by making metered investments in internal innovation teams and external partnerships & startups.

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Download our customer success card and learn how we helped develop the innovation thesis for one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical consortiums.

    A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

    For many leaders, the lack of a structured approach to innovation strategy and aligning it to an overall growth strategy and corporate goals have created inertia around driving value and shaping the future.

    Our collaborative and inclusive approach is based on the award-winning book The Corporate Startup and has been deployed with success in many large organizations around the world. The approach is agonistic, having been proven successful in industries as diverse as pharma, banking and maritime.

    The innovation thesis is the outcome and the actionable document of the innovation strategy. Just like venture capitalists have investment theses that specify the types of startups and markets they’re prepared to invest in, every large company must have an innovation thesis.

    THE OUTCOME

    Increase your ability to select high-value ideas and opportunities.

    Align your innovation strategy with your corporate growth strategy and goals.

    Avoid disconnected and ineffective initiatives in the name of innovation.

    Have a clear and actionable roadmap of where you need to go in the future.

    Increase innovation ROI by reducing the number of low-value ideas.

    Increase employee engagement through their contribution to your innovation strategy.

    INNOVATION STRATEGY

    Just like venture capitalists have investment theses, our approach starts with creating an innovation thesis. An innovation thesis clearly sets out a company’s view of the future and the strategic objectives of innovation. A thesis also sets the parameters for which innovation projects the company will or will not consider investing in.

    Executing on an innovation thesis then requires robust portfolio management of new products, services and experiences. So, we build pragmatic innovation frameworks for managing the journey from searching to execution across both exploitation of today and exploration for tomorrow. Having an innovation framework provides a unifying language for the business and underpins how a company manages investment decisions and product development practices. This also represents the bedrock for the innovation accounting system of the company, and it serves as the physical manifestation of a new way of working and the required culture.

    We develop the innovation framework following a unique process starting with understanding core market and customer problems and opportunities, identifying success factors to ultimately, scaling capability across the organisation. It’s an approach based on the bestselling book, The Corporate Startup.