Enterprise Innovation – By the Numbers

How to Plan and Manage Innovation in Your Organization

Introduction: – You still can’t manage what you can’t measure!

Enterprise Innovation as an executable strategy involves all levels of management across the organization. And to execute most effectively, managers need metrics – numbers. But, where do the seemingly evasive numbers for Innovation Management (Organizing, Planning, Budgeting, Measuring and Continuously Improving) come from? Answer: The numbers come from the historically proven, time-tested, most innovative and highly valued corporations in the world. The Innovation360Group has collected the innovation-relevant Key Success Factors (KSF’s) and now maintains a huge database of information against which to measure performance and improve results. The mystery of sustained, successful Innovation is now solved. Let’s see how this is done.

Note: First, it’s not just about the numbers! We must make an important assumption about the organizational “mindset” before we jump into the numbers. When it comes to Innovation, nowhere is it more true that, in the words of Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or can’t you’re probably right.” In other words, if you don’t have the mindset that Innovation can, in fact, be managed, all the numbers in the world won’t help you. That said, let’s get on to the numbers!

The Numbers:   Part 1 – Who Needs ‘Em?

The great warrior and philosopher, Sun Tsu said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory and tactics without strategy is just the noise before defeat.” 21st Century companies understand the importance of defining and executing an Innovation Strategy with aligned, executable Tactics. Maintaining is not sustaining.

Highly successful, innovative companies have a secret. They manage Innovation by the numbers. Executives and managers need to make good business decisions and lead the workforce accordingly. This includes analysis of Organizational Innovation strengths, weaknesses, risks and opportunities all tied to increase market-share and profits or the Non-Profit/Government equivalent outcomes/measures. All but the most enlightened Executives have had a hard time committing to Innovation because, since the dawn of digitalization, these decision-makers lacked hard data upon which to make fact-based decisions. Those days are over. With tools such as Innovation360 Group’s InnoSurvey, the data is now readily (and affordably) available.

The Numbers:   Part 2: – What Are They?

Innovation by the numbers? What are these numbers? Where’d they come from and how do I find them? Are they hard to uncover? Do I have to set up a whole new “Accounting” or Executive Information System? No! No! And, no again! The “new” numbers are about the new perspective – a new way of looking at business. It’s about how organizations create, capture and provide value – the essence of each and every organization. After all, if you’re not creating and providing value, why do you exist? Decades of research by the world’s most highly regarded institutions such as MIT Sloan and the world’s leading consultants such as Booz-Allen provide the basis for the metrics and the methodology. The Innovation360 Group has simplified and codified this research and rapidly developed an enormous database of real-world information regarding these Key Success Factors of Innovation. The critical aspects of Innovation can now be measured, benchmarked and analyzed. By looking at factors and aspects such as an Organization’s Systems, Culture, Platforms and Linkages and Learning – to name a few – that organization can now know where to discover hidden pockets of talent and opportunity as well as barriers and roadblocks to Innovation.

This information is vital to Strategic decision-making (e.g. where should resources be allocated?). The Innovation360Group has made it incredibly easy and to capture the information most critical to business success in the Digital Era. This information provides an unbelievable competitive advantage as well as the means to continuously improve today’s most important success factors including higher employee and customer engagement leading to increased market-share and profitability.

Innovation by the Numbers: Part 3: – The New Normal?

Is “Innovation by the numbers” the new normal? Not really. The numbers are not that new and they’re not that normal (to borrow a phrase from Walter Isaacson, author of The Innovators). They’re not that new because they derive from decades of studies by the world’s leading “think tanks”.   Yet they’re still not “normal” because, for the most part, people continue to look at enterprise performance the way they have been. Our world-wide, democratized, digital economy requires a fresh new approach to managed growth and prosperity. And, they’re not that “normal” because only Early Adopters – people leading organizations that “get it” are at the very leading edge. Like business itself, that’s changing fast too.

Enterprise Innovation: Conclusion – Welcome to the Innovation Generation!

Sustained, systemic Innovation no longer exists solely for the lucky, talented, gifted or the privileged few. It is available to anyone and everyone who understands the value of leveraging the experience of the great, innovating companies who showed the way. With technology-enabled innovation from innovation360.com, you can quickly, inexpensively leverage the experience of the world’s leading innovators to benchmark your team, company or government office against the leaders (and other relevant indices). Launch or improve your organization’s foray into the Innovation Generation confidently knowing that you’re on the right path. If you’re already “doing” Innovation, you can improve your results by using InnoSurvey to gain consistency of operations across departments or even Divisions across the country or the globe. But whatever you do, do it “by the numbers!” Innovate like a seasoned professional.