EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SPENDS AND TRENDS REPORT
The FEI and All Things Innovation community completed an extensive survey covering what folks are thinking, how they’re spending and the issues they face. Per the results, this is a senior-level, experienced, cross-industry group. The biggest strengths are helping the business do more with less and having an “impactful influence on the business.” The biggest opportunities are “creating new/next gen products” and “guiding enterprise strategy.” That said, the top challenges , weaknesses and threats are around “balancing short-term innovation with long-term thinking.” “Business resistance to change,” is a major issue. When it comes to collaboration , lack of time, money, and goals not being aligned are the top issues cited. These strengths and opportunities, weaknesses and threats are historically consistent for the innovation function. But there seems to be something else apparent within the results. There is a possibility that consultancies are taking budget with “innovation strategy” and “business model innovation” being the areas where most spend has occurred in the last six months. Coupling those investments with the noted issues around short-term focus vs. time and investment for breakthrough innovation points to money being spent but not by innovation leaders themselves. There is perhaps further evidence of that fact in that those answers do not remain consistent through aspirational answers regarding 2023. Spend on “Insights” goes from a middle-of-the- pack investment in the past six months to the top focus for the next six months. Incidentally this is completely in line with what we’ve found through our Insights Spend & Trends Report. When asked for their “current area of focus,” our Insights community’s highest response was to “support the product development & innovation teams.” So these Insights and Innovation Reports showcase a blending of our insights and innovation
communities but more importantly an alignment between the two functions. While it’s positive that the two functions are pointing towards each other, we may very well be at an inflection point for the innovation function. Are corporate leaders simply looking at the innovation function for iterative change and looking externally for transformational innovation? If that’s the case, what can innovation leaders do now to ensure that the internal innovation function remains the go-to team for transformational enterprise innovation? Mike Hatrick , Group Director IP Strategy & Portfolio, Volvo Group Trucks Technology, Volvo; Daniel Krauss , Director, Global Transformation Platform Leader, EY; Navin Kunde , Associate Director, Head of Open Innovation - The Experience Collaborative, Clorox; Zeinab Ali , Vice President R&D Transformation, Campbell and Gail Martino , Senior Program Leader, Unilever all provide expert commentary and answer some of those questions within this report. Moving forward, our innovation community now has this benchmarking report which can be used as a level-set tool. We’ll now take the next few months to continue to answer the above questions through coverage, interviews, intimate and larger-group gatherings as well as a next survey and eventual report which will be released at the very next FEI which is sooner than later.
Seth Adler All Things Innovation
Powered by FlippingBook