Innovation

For starters, it’s useful to deconstruct the i-word. When asked to define what innovation means in their organizational context, many survey respondents offered lengthy articulations. Multisentence (and even some multiparagraph) answers were common. For example, Jen Hartsock, CIO of Baker Hughes, speaks of two different types of innovation—one with a capital “I”, which is highly methodical, often sponsored by the organization using formal business practices, and one with a little “i”, which is something that anyone can do by finding places they can contribute to drive change and process improvements.

Others emphasized bespoke, sector-specific milestones and metrics (e.g., “cost-neutral reductions in trade-settlement times”). In looking across the range of responses, however, two clear characteristics persist: A successful innovation must be both new and improved. While this reductionist definition, reminiscent of a sticker on a bottle of laundry detergent, is simple, it’s by no means simplistic.

New (but not necessarily new-to-world)

Many people mistakenly believe that innovations need to be jaw-dropping, new-to-world epiphanies. One innovation leader cautioned, however, that “there’s such a thing as too much novelty.” Truly new-to-world discoveries and inventions are typically the province of traditional R&D organizations, which are in turn, often capital-intensive cost centers.

Indeed, our study reveals that new mixes or applications of known winners is a more common recipe for innovation success. Today’s innovators see themselves less as researchers and inventors, and more as composers, orchestrators, and cross-pollinators. “A lot of innovation comes from experimentation with the new (customers, use cases, or technology) and the old (rewriting what we have done earlier)

Improved (as measured financially)

The second critical component to an innovation is its ability to deliver measurable improvement over a legacy alternative. Or as another interviewee states, “People generally overweight the novelty standard and underweight the improvement standard. This is a mistake.”

While some value propositions (health care outcomes, or citizen engagement, for example) don’t immediately lend themselves to financial measures, the cost for equivalent outcomes, as measured in money, can be assessed.

The takeaway here is that inventors turn cash into new ideas, but innovators turn new ideas into cash. Innovations are ultimately measured by their financial contributions, not their patents or design awards. Or, as Steve Jobs said, “Real artists ship.”

Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/innovation/corporate-innovation-program-report-and-key-takeaways.html