What is Innovation Management?
Innovation is a term commonly touted in millions of vision statements, corporate strategies and marketing brochures. A majority of companies claim to be innovative; yet when it comes to reality there is a significant gap between aspirations and tangible results. Innovation Management provides a framework by which a firm not only cultivates value-focused creativity, but also harnesses and implements innovation in the production and delivery of its products or services.
What components are essential to Innovation Management and are there practical steps that can be taken to facilitate innovative behavior? Is it simply done by only gathering clever people around a table? Is innovative behavior only encouraged within specific organizational units (e.g. a Research & Development department)?
Innovation should be encouraged and harvested from every level, literally from any 'corner' of an organization utilizing the creative power, the know-how and the experience of all available resources. It does not end with submitting an extraordinary idea or a ground-breaking new concept.
Successful Innovation Management funnels creative ideas through a process that results in tangible applications to products or services, leading to enhanced competitive advantage, as reflected in elevated consumer benefits, increased market share and improved efficiency in the manufacturing process.
Innovation only provides a temporary advantage however, given responses by competitors and a constantly changing business environment. Innovation Management, therefore, must be an institutionalized discipline; continuously facilitating innovation across all organizational units in order to meet stakeholders’ expectations.
Our approach to Innovation Management
Innovation Management, in our view, is of strategic importance for any enterprise that strives for sustainable success by remaining competitive and consistently exceeding customers’ expectations. We offer a wide range of solutions, and take a 'whole-enterprise' approach to Innovation Management, as every level of an organization is affected.
We believe that in addition to structure, processes, tools and methods, innovation requires a culture that motivates and shares values and beliefs among individuals, teams and the organization. Understanding the means and methods for motivating creativity is crucial to this process.
In our view, leaders must create an environment conducive to creative thinking for their employees, aligned with an incentive program to reward such behavior. This requires a systematic process that deliberately and continually delivers a steady pipeline of profitable innovations to the marketplace.
This of course entails a certain degree of calculative risk taking on every level of organizational hierarchy; but in our view, is vital to the Innovation Management process.
Our services
In order to best help and support you in the process of managing and maximizing your firm’s innovative potential, we apply our extensive experience in areas such as product management, product development, customer service, operation, change management and business development; experience we have gained within globally engaged organizations that have successfully penetrated diversified, highly competitive markets.
Central to our approach for finding a fitting solution to your unique situation is to gain a solid understanding of your current situation, your goals and strategic targets. There is no magic wand for Innovative Management, or no standard solution that can be applied to your business. We can help you to design and implement a customized strategy for enduring Innovation Management.
The following is a list of our services; however we encourage you to contact us for a detailed analysis of your individual needs.
- Innovation strategy development and implementation support
- Optimization of relevant processes and procedures (idea sourcing, validation/ selection, idea development and implementation)
- Interface management (along the value chain)
- Implementation of creativity tools and methods
- Training and workshops (see section Coaching & Training)
- Human capital analysis and recommendation – how to best utilize resources
- Development and implementation of innovative behavior by cultivating a suitable internal environment
