Introduction
Developing innovation capabilities is becoming a priority for most corporations. Thus, titles such as CIO, or VP/Head of Innovation have emerged in large companies over the last years. But it’s not possible to find a clear, universal definition for the role of an innovation executive. In this article, we address common misconceptions about the definition and responsibilities of innovation-related roles.
In many companies, the embryonic role was born out of the corporation’s growing need to be perceived as innovative. But not out of conviction and understanding of why it is important to have someone heading innovation topics and activities. Thus, companies generally leave it up to the ambitious executives to define the description of the role. It’s also up to them to define the scope of their responsibilities, and the methodologies used to evaluate their success. This led to the emergence of many doctrines or approaches to innovation. These approaches tend to have their roots in the backgrounds of the respective innovation heads.
We believe that innovation is a cross-disciplinary area open to people from different backgrounds. Yet, we’d warn against common misconceptions we have witnessed across different industries as to what heading corporate innovation is about.
Corporate innovation ≠ Marketing
It is true that marketing is a component of corporate innovation strategy. It is important to communicate about innovation and promote a company’s innovation activities externally and internally. This plays an important role in positioning the corporation as an innovative player (and employer) in its industry. It helps rejuvenate its brand in the digital age. It also contributes to raising internal awareness about new markets and emerging technologies, and promoting innovative thinking and risk taking. But putting all of your efforts as innovation executive in marketing is not a very wise choice. It would be similar to a product manager spending all of their budget on advertising before building a good product.
Corporate innovation ≠ (only) R&D
Many manufacturing companies have progressively replaced the term R&D with innovation over the last years. Yes, R&D is one way to innovation. It is probably the most classical approach, as it is all about creating new products and improving existing ones. So there is nothing wrong about using R&D and innovation interchangeably, especially in a manufacturing context. Yet, it can be a simple rebranding of the role of R&D manager.
It is very limiting for innovation executives to define their role with the R&D engineering glasses on. First, because corporate innovation is not only about products. It goes beyond to concern business models, processes, and even organizational structures. Second, because it involves a lot more stakeholders within the company than product managers and engineers. So if you have an engineering background, don’t let it limit your role is as head of innovation.
Corporate innovation ≠ Event Management
It’s common to come across innovation managers that focus on organizing events; Hackathons, internal innovation challenges, external competitions, start-up fairs, and the like. They do so with the hope that some innovative ideas will pop up in these events that they can benefit from. It turns out that it rarely happens. Because if you don’t have an idea about what you’re looking for, there are little chances that you’ll find it. Here again, the logic is similar to what we said about marketing. These events are important and useful only if you organize them with a clear and specific purpose in mind. Otherwise, they will only play an entertainment role in the best case. And they would be a waste of valuable resources in the worst case.
Core innovation concepts
Before we can give a definition of an innovation executive, there are two fundamental concepts we need to go through.
The definition of innovation
The first is the definition of innovation. Schumpeter defines it as the process through which one generates new ideas and puts them into commercial practice. In other words: An innovation can be anything from a product, to a process, a business model, or an organizational structure that is new (to the company, the industry, or the world) and that creates a monetary value. If it’s not new on any of the levels mentioned before, and/or it does not allow your organization to save costs or generate additional revenues, then it’s not an innovation.
The innovation diffusion model
The second is that contrary to what one might believe, innovation is a minority thing. And this applies both to your customers and employees. Looking at Rogers’ diffusion model, you will realize that only about 16% of humans are innovation prone. This means people who would be willing to adopt a novelty only out of pure interest. Among them only 2.5% are innovators, i.e. people that actually DO innovate. The remaining 84% are pragmatists and skeptics; People who would opt for a new product or process only if it is (X-times) better than the status quo.
What is an innovation executive?
The definition of innovation means that an innovation executive focuses on driving activities that are really innovative. Activities that bring something new to your company, allowing to save costs or capture additional revenues. Other types of activities (such as communicating about innovation, or organizing events around innovation) do not make your company more innovative. They are complementary activities that come later when you have achieved wins and successes worth sharing.
The definition of innovation is also important to help you define a methodology to evaluate your performance as an innovation executive. Always remember that you will need to measure your success in numbers. And keep in mind that most of these numbers will be followed by a dollar sign (or another currency).
The diffusion model, on the other hand, helps you understand the stakeholder groups you are dealing with. It also reminds you that 84% of them won’t care about novelties you bring unless they perceive a clear utility. Your goal is to identify innovators within and outside your company that create tangible value. They can be fellow employees with a hacker mindset. Someone who came up with a solution to an inefficient process affecting hundreds of employees across the organization. Or a tech start-up providing cutting-edge technology that could make your products more competitive. Then, find innovation prone employees (or customers) that may be interested in the new solutions you discovered. And set up an environment where they can test and evaluate them.
Finally, talk to the larger public of pragmatists and skeptics (and of course to your superiors). Do it once you have shareable results (e.g., positive feedback from early users or X% improvement of a KPI). Your aim should be driving large-scale adoption of innovative solutions.
With these concepts in mind, you will be able to develop an innovation strategy. It should include a stakeholder map, focus topics, and the set of activities you’ll pursue. These are the elements that will help you drive the growth of your company.
Conclusion
To wrap up, innovation executives are harmonizers and enablers. They identify and bring together innovators and innovation enthusiasts and provide them with necessary resources to create value. These innovation leaders have the ability to see the big picture, and understand the business context they’re in. They navigate the political complexities of their company, and prioritize topics to draft and execute an innovation strategy.
If you are an innovation executive, feel free to share your perspective and personal experience with us in the comments. You can also let us know if there’s a specific topic you want us to address in our next articles.
ATLAS can support you with any of the topics addressed in this article. We encourage you to get in touch with us through our contact page to tell us about your needs.