SHORT-TERM FOCUS, LONG-TERM VISION
We, as innovation leaders, need to figure out how to make things that truly deliver on the longer term relevant to the business and yet serve the business in the short term. However, the nature of the expectations by the businesses that are funding innovation is that they always expect it to happen quickly, and the long term stuff takes a long time.
Survey results showcasing the highest increases in spend being on ‘business model innovation’ and ‘Innovation strategy,’ might mean that the company leadership is wondering how to innovate, and they feel that there are fewer people on the inside who can drive that change. So, it seems they might be going external. It seems that the internal innovation people are not being included in building the strategy. An external entity is coming and dictating how to innovate and how to build the strategy, and then the internal people are just executors. The results around breakthrough vs. short-term innovation showcase that the community is pointing to the correct underlying challenges, but they’re not connecting those challenges to what’s happening to their people. ‘Not enough time is
being given to breakthrough innovation’ due to the ‘business looking short term,’ is a usual reality. We, as innovation leaders, need to figure out how to deal with it, and how to make things that truly deliver on the longer term relevant to the business and yet serve the business in the short term. Breakthroughs happen rarely, at least in CPG, where I sit. But I wouldn’t call that fact a threat to the innovation function. It’s more a reality of being in the innovation function, that you can’t put all your eggs in that long- term breakthrough bucket. You’ve got to keep innovating even on the less breakthrough, more short term projects, because the business is what is funding you throughout. It’s one of the age-old challenges of innovation. That said, eventually you need to drive revenue, and those new products and services need to drive revenue. Right in the beginning though, they don’t often drive revenue, they start out very small. But if you have met the customer and consumer needs, eventually they will drive revenue. Any organization that has driving revenue as a major innovation goal right off the bat is either in a short- cycle business like fashion or tech, or they’re just thinking about innovation not in a sort of breakthrough type of manner but more of an incremental innovation type of manner.
Powered by FlippingBook