Consider all facets of innovation activities

• Innovation strategy defines the areas of focus for the organisation over the next period defining the types of innovation that it will pursue and the benefits that seeks to achieve from the investment of its scarce resources. Innovation strategies should also include appropriate metrics that will allow the organisation to identify how successful its innovation projects have been. Have areas of focus been identified and the expected benefits for your organisation defined?
• Ideas for a new or improved product or service is just the start of the innovation process. In addition to developing an organisational culture where your employees strive to innovate, appropriate criteria for ideas selection and investment need to be embedded. Are enough ideas being generated, and your organisation can successfully select the ones to invest in?
• Networks and alliances consider strategic partnerships that the organisation needs to build and complement their innovation projects. By clarifying possible open innovation activities that the organisation will explore can lead to possible co-innovations and co-developments with other organisations. Is it possible to introduce new technologies and IP from external organisations or outsource weaker areas to other organisations?
• Business case, for each innovation project, is the culmination of the above activities allowing the organisation to prioritise innovation ideas and allocate scarce resources aligned with the strategy that has been developed. It defines the financial investment needed and the expected business benefits for the organisation. It includes a thorough understanding of various market segments and industries, that the proposed new product or service will target, competitive landscape, potential market acceptance and expected margins. Have appropriate criteria to select and prioritise innovation ideas to invest in been defined?
• Resources include technologies, tools and expertise needed to develop and bring to market the defined products or services. Are all the necessary resources to develop and launch your product or service available?
• Processes are structures and systems that will enable the organisation to develop a systematic way to generate ideas, prioritise them based on set criteria aligned with the strategy of the organisation and assign scarce resources, ultimately leading to successfully launched products and services. Have appropriate systems that support your innovation initiatives across the whole of the organisation been established?
• Portfolio of innovation projects is the set of projects that the organisation will pursue within a specific period to achieve specific outcomes. Has a balanced innovation portfolio to manage risk been developed and have the expected benefits across all types of innovation been defined?
• People includes competencies and skills of all staff that are enablers for innovation activities to be successful and add the needed value to the organisation. Have your staff the knowledge, skills and experience to successfully execute your organisation's innovation initiatives?
• Culture defines the way your organisation goes about performing the business as usual and innovation projects. Have appropriate incentives to motivate staff to participate in innovation activities been developed and have appropriate processes to allow them to strive for continuous improvement been designed?
• Leadership is as important to innovation pursuits as it is across all business activities enabling the organisation to remain aligned to the formulated strategy, make timely decisions and change as appropriate. Has your organisation developed the leaders that will support innovation projects in the future?

On the left-hand side of the diamond the focus of the innovation-related activities of an organisation is targeted towards understanding and capturing the  value  it expects from the investment in its innovation projects. In the middle of the diamond the focus is towards developing  efficient and effective processes  to support the organisation's innovation activities while the right hand-side of the diamond is dedicated towards  building organisational capability, capacity, and culture  to enable innovation within the organisation.

The outputs of the innovation pursuits of the organisation are new products or services launched to meet specific demands and solve specific problems that customers have, while very often the innovation pursuit entails the development of a new business model, opening up new opportunities to add and extract value.

Find out how we can assist your organisation in its innovation and growth pursuits  here.